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Tne 

WATE 


BABIES 


By ^ 

CHARLES KINGSLEY 


IlJusfratecf By 
G. WRIGHT 


A-WESSELS CO. 

NE:\>r YORK. MDCCCC. 


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Copyright^ ipoo^ by ^ 

A. WESSELS COMPANY 


G9827 


jLSl>rMi/y Corttf'e** 

I 'Vi. <.yPilt IVt.UWiO 

! NOV 2 1900 

vnfiNt irttry 

SfC'-'Nl) C<iPV. 

64 -NvmW (• 

OftDW WVtSlOH, 

NOV 19 1900 


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TO MY YOUNGEST SON GRENVILLE ARTHUR 
AND TO ALL OTHER GOOD LITTLE BOYS 


Come read me my riddle, each good little man 
If you cannot read it, no gronun-up folk can 



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Bring sad thoughts to the mind. 


“ To her fair works did Nature link 

The human soul that through me ran ; 

And much it grieved my heart to think.. 

IVhat man has made of man.” 

IVORDSWORTH. 

O NCE upon a time there was a little chimney- 
sweep, and his name was Tom. That is a 

short name, and you have heard it before, so 
you will not have much trouble in remembering 
it. He lived in a great town in the North country, where 
there were plenty of chimneys to sweep, and plenty of 
money for Tom to earn and his master to spend. He could 

not read nor write, and did not care to do either ; and he 

never washed himself, for there was no water up the court 
where he lived. He had never been taught to say his 

prayers. He never had heard of God, or of Christ, except 
in words which you never have heard, and which it would 
have been well if he had never heard. He cried half his 
time, and laughed the other half. He cried when he had 
to climb the dark flues, rubbing his poor knees and elbows 


I 


The Water-Babies 


raw ; and when the soot got into his eyes, which it did 
every day in the week ; and when his master beat him, 
which he did every day in the week ; and when he had 
not enough to eat, which happened every day in the week 
likewise. And he laughed the other half of the day, when 
he was tossing halfpennies with the other boys, or playing 
leap-frog over the posts, or bowling stones at the horses’ 
legs as they trotted by, which last was excellent fun, when 
there was a wall at hand behind which to hide. As for 
chimney-sweeping, and being hungry, and being beaten, he 
took all that for the way of the world, like the rain and 
snow and thunder, and stood manfully with his back to it 
till it was over, as his old donkey did to a hail-storm ; and 
then shook his ears and was as jolly as ever ; and thought 
of the fine times coming, when he would be a man, and a 
master sweep, and sit in the public-house with a quart of 
beer and a long pipe, and play cards for silver money, and 
wear velveteens and ankle-jacks, and keep a white bull-dog 
with one gray ear, and carry her puppies in his pocket, just 
like a man. And he would have apprentices, one, two, 
three, if he could. How he would bully them, and knock 
them about, just as his master did to him ; and make them 
carry home the soot sacks, while he rode before them on 
his donkey, with a pipe in his mouth and a flower in his 
button-hole, like a king at the head of his army. Yes, 
there were good times coming ; and, when his master let 
him have a pull at the leavings of his beer, Tom was the 
jolliest boy in the whole town. 

One day a smart little groom rode into the court where 
Tom lived. Tom was just hiding behind a wall, to heave 
half a brick at his horse’s legs, as is the custom of that 


The Water-Babies 


country when they welcome strangers ; but the groom saw 
him, and halloed to him to know where Mr. Grimes, the 
chimney-sweep, lived. Now, Mr. Grimes was Tom’s own 
master, and Tom was a good man of business, and always 
civil to customers, so he put the half-brick down quietly 
behind the wall, and proceeded to take orders. 

Mr. Grimes was to come up next morning to Sir John 
Harthover’s, at the Place, for his old chimney-sweep was 
gone to prison, and the chimneys wanted sweeping. And 
so he rode away, not giving Tom time to ask what the 
sweep had gone to prison for, which was a matter of interest 
to Tom, as he had been in prison once or twice himself. 
Moreover, the groom looked so very neat and clean, with 
his drab gaiters, drab breeches, drab jacket, snow-white tie 
with a smart pin in it, and clean round ruddy face, that Tom 
was offended and disgusted at his appearance, and considered 
him a stuck-up fellow, who gave himself airs because he 
wore smart clothes, and other people paid for them ; and 
went behind the wall to fetch the half-brick after all; but 
did not, remembering that he had come in the way of 
business, and was, as it were, under a flag of truce. 

His master was so delighted at his new customer that 
he knocked Tom down out of hand, and drank more beer 
that night than he usually did in two, in order to be sure 
of getting up in time next morning ; for the more a man’s 
head aches when he wakes, the more glad he is to turn out, 
and have a breath of fresh air. And, when he did get up 
at four the next morning, he knocked Tom down again, 
in order to teach him (as young gentlemen used to be taught 
at public schools) that he must be an extra good boy that 
day, as they were going to a very great house, and might 


3 


The Water-Babies 


make a very good thing of it, if they could but give 
satisfaction. 

And Tom thought so likewtise, and, indeed, would have 
done and behaved his best, even without being knocked 
down. For, of all places upon earth, Harthover Place 
(which he had never seen) was the most wonderful, and, of 
all men on earth. Sir John (whom he had seen, having been 
sent to gaol by him twice) was the most awful. 

Harthover Place was really a grand place, even for the 
rich North country ; with a house so large that in the frame- 
breaking riots, which Tom could just remember, the Duke 
of Wellington, and ten thousand soldiers to match, were 
easily housed therein ; at least, so Tom believed ; with a 
park full of deer, which Tom believed to be monsters who 
were in the habit of eating children ; with miles of game- 
preserves, in which Mr. Grimes and the collier lads poached 
at times, on which occasions Tom saw pheasants, and won- 
dered what they tasted like ; with a noble salmon-river, in 
which Mr. Grimes and his friends would have liked to 
poach ; but then they must have got into cold water, and 
that they did not like at all. In short, Harthover was a 
grand place, and Sir John a grand old man, whom even Mr. 
Grimes respected ; for not only could he send Mr. Grimes to 
prison when he deserved it, as he did once or twice a week ; 
not only did he own all the land about for miles ; not only 
was he a jolly, honest, sensible squire, as ever kept a pack of 
hounds, who would do what he thought right by his neigh- 
bours, as well as get what he thought right for himself ; but, 
what was more, he weighed full fifteen stone, was nobody 
knew how many inches round the chest, and could have 
thrashed Mr. Grimes himself in fair fight, which very few 


4 


The Water-Babies 


folk round there could do, and which, my dear little boy, 
would not have been right for him to do, as a great many 
things are not which one both can do, and would like very 
much to do. So Mr. Grimes touched his hat to him when 
he rode through the town, and called him a “ buirdly awd 
chap,’’ and his young ladies gradely lasses,” which are two 
high compliments in the North country ; and thought that 
that made up for his poaching Sir John’s, pheasants ; where- 
by you may perceive that Mr. Grimes had not been to a 
properly-inspected Government National school. 

Now, I dare say, you never got up at three o’clock on a 
midsummer morning. Some people get up then because 
they want to catch salmon ; and some because they want to 
climb Alps ; and a great many more because they must, like 
Tom. But, I assure you, that three o’clock on a midsummer 
morning is the pleasantest time of all the twenty-four hours, 
and all the three hundred and sixty-five days ; and why every 
one does not get up then, I never could tell, save that they 
are all determined to spoil their nerves and their complexions 
by doing all night what they might just as well do all day. 
But Tom, instead of going out to dinner at half-past eight at 
night, and to a ball at ten, and finishing off somewhere 
between twelve and four, went to bed at seven, when his 
master went to the public-house, and slept like a dead pig ; 
for which reason he was as piert as a game-cock (who always 
gets up early to wake the maids), and just ready to get up 
when the fine gentlemen and ladies were just ready to go to 
bed. 

So he and his master set out; Grimes rode the donkey in 
front, and Tom and the brushes walked behind ; out of the 
court, and up the street, past the closed window-shutters, and 


5 


The Water-Babies 


the winking weary policemen, and the roofs all shining gray 
in the gray dawn. 

They passed through the pitmen’s village, all shut up and 
silent now, and through the turnpike ; and then they were 
out in the real country, and plodding along the black dusty 
road, between black slag walls, with no sound but the groan- 
ing and thumping of the pit-engine in the next field. But 
soon the road grew white, and the walls likewise ; and at the 
wall’s foot grew long grass and gay flowers, all drenched with 
dew; and instead of the groaning of the pit-engine, they 
heard the skylark saying his matins high up in the air, and 
the pit-bird warbling in the sedges, as he had warbled all 
night long. 

All else was silent. For old Mrs. Earth was still fast 
asleep ; and, like many pretty people, she looked still prettier 
asleep than awake. The great elm-trees in the gold-green 
meadows were fast asleep above, and the cows fast asleep 
beneath them ; nay, the few clouds which were about were 
fast asleep likewise, and so tired that they had lain down on 
the earth to rest, in long white flakes and bars, among the 
stems of the elm-trees, and along the tops of the alders by 
the stream, waiting for the sun to bid them rise and go about 
their day’s business in the clear blue overhead. 

On they went ; and Tom looked, and looked, for he never 
had been so far into the country before ; and longed to get 
over a gate, and pick buttercups, and look for birds’ nests in 
the hedge; but Mr. Grimes was a man of business, and would 
not have heard of that. 

Soon they came up with a poor Irishwoman, trudging 
along with a bundle at her back. She had a gray shawl over 
her head, and a crimson madder petticoat ; so you may be 


6 







The Water-Babies 


sure she came from Galway. She had neither shoes nor 
stockings, and limped along as if she were tired and footsore ; 
but she was a very tall handsome woman, with bright gray 
eyes, and heavy black hair Ijanging about her cheeks. And 
she took Mr. Grimes’ fancy so much, that when he came 
alongside he called out to her : 

“ This is a hard road for a gradely foot like that. Will ye 
up, lass, and ride behind me } ” 

But, perhaps, she did not admire Mr. Grimes’ look and 
voice ; for she answered quietly : 

“No, thank you: I’d sooner walk with your little lad 
here.” 

“You may please yourself,” growled Grimes, and went on 
smoking. 

So she walked beside Tom, and talked to him, and asked 
him where he lived, and what he knew, and all about him- 
self, till Tom thought he had never met such a pleasant- 
spoken woman. And she asked him, at last, whether he said 
his prayers! and seemed sad when he told her that he knew 
no prayers to say. 

Then he asked her where she lived, and she said far away 
by the sea. And Tom asked her about the sea ; and she told 
him how it rolled and roared over the rocks in winter nights 
and lay still in the bright summer-days, for the children to 
bathe and play in it ; and many a story more, till Tom longed 
to go and see the sea, and bathe in it likewise. 

At last, at the bottom of a hill, they came to a spring ; 
not such a spring as you see here, which soaks up out 
of a white gravel in the bog, among red fly-catchers, 
and pink bottle-heath, and sweet white orchis ; nor such 
a one as you may see, too, here, which bubbles up under 


7 


The Water-Babies 


the warm sandbank in the hollow lane, by the great tuft 
of lady ferns, and makes the sand dance reels at the bottom, 
day and night, all the year round ; not such a spring as 
either of those ; but a real North country limestone foun- 
tain, like one of those in Sicily or Greece, where the old 
heathen fancied the nymphs sat cooling themselves the hot 
summer’s day, while the shepherds peeped at them from 
behind the bushes. Out of a low cave of rock, at the 
foot of a limestone crag, the great fountain rose, quelling, 
and bubbling, and gurgling, so clear that you could not tell 
where the water ended and the air began ; and ran away 
under the road, a stream large enough to turn a mill ; among 
blue geranium, and golden globe-flower, and wild raspberry, 
and the bird-cherry with its tassels of snow. 

And there Grimes stopped, and looked ; and Tom looked 
too. Tom was wondering whether anything lived in that 
dark cave, and came out at night 'to fly in the meadows. 
But Grimes was not wondering at all. Without a word, he 
got off his donkey, and clambered over the low road wall, 
and knelt down, and began dipping his ugly head into 
the spring — and very dirty he made it. 

Tom was picking the flowers as fast as he could. The 
Irishwoman helped him, and showed him how to tie them 
up ; and a very pretty nosegay they had made between them. 
But when he saw Grimes actually wash, he stopped, quite 
astonished ; and when Grimes had finished, and began 
shaking his ears to dry them, he said : 

“ Why, master, I never saw you do that before.” 

‘‘ Nor will again, most likely. ’T was n’t for cleanliness 
I did it, but for coolness. I ’d be ashamed to want washing 
every week or so, like any smutty collier lad.” 


8 


The Water-Babies 


“ I wish I might go and dip my head in,” said poor 
little Tom. “ It must be as good as putting it under the 
town-pump ; and there is no beadle here to drive a chap 
away.” 

“ Thou come along,” said Grimes ; “ what dost want 
with washing thyself? Thou did not drink half a gallon of 
beer last night, like me.” 

“ I don’t care for you,” said naughty Tom, and ran down 
to the stream, and began washing his face. 

Grimes was very sulky, because the woman preferred 
Tom’s company to his ; so he dashed at him with horrid 
words, and tore him up from his knees, and began beating 
him. But Tom was accustomed to that, and got his head 
safe between Mr. Grimes* legs, and kicked his shins with all 
his might. 

“ Are you not ashamed of yourself, Thomas Grimes ? ” 
cried the Irishwoman over the wall. 

Grimes looked up, startled at her knowing his name ; but 
all he answered was, “ No, nor never was yet ; ” and went on 
beating Tom. 

“ True for you. If you ever had been ashamed of your- 
self, you would have gone over into Vendale long ago.” 

“What do you know about Vendale ? ” shouted Grimes ; 
but he left off beating Tom. 

“ I know about Vendale, and about you, too. I know, 
for instance, what happened in Aldermire Copse, by night, 
two years ago come Martinmas.’* 

“You do?” shouted Grimes; and leaving Tom, he 
climbed up over the wall, and faced the woman. Tom 
thought he was going to strike her ; but she looked him too 
full and fierce in the face for that. 


9 


The Water-Babies 


“Yes; I was there,” said the Irishwoman quietly. 

“ You are no Irishwoman, by your speech,” said Grimes, 
after many bad words. 

“ Never mind who I am. I saw what I saw ; and if you 
strike that boy again, I can tell what I know.” 

Grimes seemed quite cowed, and got on his donkey with- 
out another word. 

“ Stop ! ” said the Irishwoman. “ I have one more word 
for you both ; for you will both see me again before all is 
over. Those that wish to be clean, clean they will be ; and 
those that wish to be foul, foul they will be. Remember.” 

And she turned away, and through a gate into the 
meadow. Grimes stood still a moment, like a man who had 
been stunned. Then he rushed after her, shouting, “ You 
come back.” But when he got into the meadow, the 
woman was not there. 

Had she hidden away ? There was no place to hide in. 

But Grimes looked about, and Tom also, for he was as 
puzzled as Grimes himself at her disappearing so suddenly ; 
but look where they would, she was not there. 

Grimes came back again, as silent as a post, for he was 
a little frightened ; and, getting on his donkey, filled a fresh 
pipe, and smoked away, leaving Tom in peace. 

And now they had gone three miles and more, and came 
to Sir John’s lodge-gates. 

Very grand lodges they were, with very grand iron gates 
and stone gate-posts, and on the top of each a most dreadful 
bogy, all teeth, horns, and tail, which was the crest which Sir 
John’s ancestors wore in the Wars of the Roses; and very 
prudent men they were to wear it, for all their enemies must 
have run for their lives at the very first sight of them. 


The Water-Babies 

Grimes rang at the gate, and out came a keeper on the 
spot, and opened. 

“ I was told to expect thee,” he said. “ Now thou ’It 
be so good as to keep to the main avenue, and not let me 
find a hare or a rabbit on thee when thou comest back. I 
shall look sharp for one, I tell thee.” 

‘‘ Not if it ’s in the bottom of the soot-bag,” quoth 
Grimes, and at that he laughed ; and the keeper laughed 
and said : 

“ If that ’s thy sort, I may as well walk up with thee to 
the hall.” 

“ I think thou best had. It ’s thy business to see after thy 
game, man, and not mine.” 

So the keeper went with them ; and, to Tom’s surprise, 
he and Grimes chatted together all the way quite pleasantly. 
He did not know that a keeper is only a poacher turned 
outside in, and a poacher a keeper turned inside out. 

They walked up a great lime avenue, a full mile long, and 
between their stems Tom peeped trembling at the horns of 
the sleeping deer, which stood up among the ferns. Tom 
had never seen such enormous trees, and as he looked up he 
fancied that the blue sky rested on their heads. But he was 
puzzled very much by a strange murmuring noise, which 
followed them all the way. So much puzzled, that at last 
he took courage to ask the keeper what it was. 

He spoke very civilly, and called him Sir, for he was 
horribly afraid of him, which pleased the keeper, and he 
told him that they were the bees about the lime flowers. 

“ What are bees ? ” asked Tom. 

“What make honey.” 

“What is honey asked Tom. 


II 


The Water-Babies 


“ Thou hold thy noise,” said Grimes. 

“ Let the boy be,” said the keeper. “He ’s a civil young 
chap now, and that ’s more than he ’ll be long if he bides 
with thee.” 

Grimes laughed, for he took that for a compliment. 

“ I wish I were a keeper,” said Tom, “ to live in such 
a beautiful place, and wear green velveteens, and have a real 
dog- whistle at my button, like you.” 

The keeper laughed ; he was a kind-hearted fellow 
enough. 

“ Let well alone, lad, and ill too at times. Thy life ’s 
safer than mine at all events, eh, Mr. Grimes?” 

And Grimes laughed again, and then the two men began 
talking quite low. Tom could hear, though, that it was 
about some poaching fight ; and at last Grimes said surlily, 
“ Hast thou anything against me ? ” 

“Not now.” 

“ Then don’t ask me any questions till thou hast, for I am 
a man of honour.” 

And at that they both laughed again, and thought it 
a very good joke. 

And by this time they were come up to the great iron 
gates in front of the house ; and Tom stared through them 
at the rhododendrons and azaleas, which were all in flower; 
and then at the house itself, and wondered how many chim- 
neys there were in it, and how long ago it was built, and 
what was the man’s name that built it, and whether he got 
much money for his job ? 

These last were very difficult questions to answer. For 
Harthover had been built at ninety different times, and in 
nineteen different styles, and looked as if somebody had built 


The Water-Babies 


a whole street of houses of every imaginable shape, and then 
stirred them together with a spoon. 

For the attics were Anglo-Saxon. 

The third floor Norman. 

The second Cinque -cento. 

The flrst floor Flizabethan. 

The right wing Pure Doric. 

The centre Early English, with a huge portico copied from 
the Parthenon. 

The left wing pure Boeotian, which the country folk admired 
most of all, because it was just like the new barracks in the 
town, only three times as big. 

The grand staircase was copied from the Catacombs at Rome. 

The back staircase from the Tajmahal at Agra. This was 
built by Sir John^ s great-great-great-uncle, who won, in Lord 
Clive's Indian Wars, plenty of money, plenty of wounds, and no 
more taste than his betters. 

The cellars were copied from the caves of Elephant a. 

The oflices from the Pavilion at Brighton. 

And the rest from nothing in heaven, or earth, or under 
the earth. 

So that Harthover House was a great puzzle to antiqua- 
rians, and a thorough Naboth’s vineyard to critics, and archi- 
tects, and all persons who like meddling with other men’s 
business, and spending other men’s money. So they were all 
setting upon poor Sir John, year after year, and trying to talk 
him into spending a hundred thousand pounds or so, in build- 
ing, to please them and not himself. But he always put 
them off, like a canny North-countryman as he was. One 


13 


The Water-Babies 


wanted him to build a Gothic house, but he said he was no 
Goth ; and another to build an Elizabethan, but he said he 
lived under good Queen Victoria, and not good Queen Bess ; 
and another was bold enough to tell him that his house was 
ugly, but he said he lived inside it, and not outside ; and 
another, that there was no unity in it, but he said that that 
was just why he liked the old place. For he liked to see 
how each Sir John, and Sir Hugh, and Sir Ralph, and Sir 
Randal, had left his mark upon the place, each after his own 
taste ; and he had no more notion of disturbing his ancestors’ 
work than of disturbing their graves. For now the house 
looked like a real live house, that had a history, and had 
grown and grown as the world grew ; and that it was only 
an upstart fellow who did not know who his own grand- 
father was, who would change it for some spick and span 
new Gothic or Elizabethan thing, which looked as if it had 
been all spawned in a night, as mushrooms are. From 
which you may collect (if you have wit enough) that Sir 
John was a very sound-headed, sound-hearted squire, and just 
the man to keep the country side in order, and show good 
sport with his hounds. 

But Tom and his master did not go in through the great 
iron gates, as if they had been Dukes or Bishops, but round 
the back way, and a very long way round it was ; and into a 
little back-door, where the ash-boy let them in, yawning 
horribly ; and then in a passage the housekeeper met them, 
in such a flowered chintz dressing-gown, that Tom mistook 
her for My Lady herself, and she gave Grimes solemn orders 
about “ You will take care of this, and take care of that,” as 
if he was going up the chimneys, and not Tom. And 
Grimes listened, and said every now and then, under his voice. 


14 


The Water-Babies 


“You’ll mind that, you little beggar?” and Tom did mind, 
all at least that he could. And then the housekeeper turned 
them into a grand room, all covered up in sheets of brown 
paper, and bade them begin, in a lofty and tremendous voice ; 
and so after a whimper or two, and a kick from his master, 
into the grate Tom went, and up the chimney, while a 
housemaid stayed in the room to watch the furniture ; to 
whom Mr. Grimes paid many playful and chivalrous compli- 
ments, but met with very slight encouragement in return. 

How many chimneys Tom swept I cannot say ; but he 
swept so many that he got quite tired, and puzzled too, for 
they were not like the town flues to which he was accus- 
tomed, but such as you would find — if you would only get 
up them and look, which perhaps you would not like to do 
— in old country-houses, large and crooked chimneys, which 
had been altered again and again, till they ran one into 
another, anastomosing (as Professor Owen would say) consid- 
erably. So Tom fairly lost his way in them ; not that he 
cared much for that, though he was in pitchy darkness, for 
he was as much at home in a chimney as a mole is under- 
ground ; but at last, coming down as he thought the right 
chimney, he came down the wrong one, and found himself 
standing on the hearthrug in a room the like of which he 
had never seen before. 

Tom had never seen the like. He had never been in 
gentlefolks’ rooms but when the carpets were all up, and the 
curtains down, and the furniture huddled together under a 
cloth, and the pictures covered with aprons and dusters ; 
and he had often enough wondered what the rooms were 
like when they were all ready for the quality to sit in. And 
now he saw, and he thought the sight very pretty. 

15 


The Water-Babies 


The room was all dressed in white, — white window- 
curtains, white hed-curtains, white furniture, and white walls, 
with just a few lines of pink here and there. The carpet was 
all over gay little flowers ; and the walls were hung with 
pictures in gilt frames, which amused Tom very much. 
There were pictures of ladies and gentlemen, and pictures of 
horses and dogs. The horses he liked ; but the dogs he did 
not care for much, for there were no bull-dogs among them, 
not even a terrier. But the two pictures which took his fancy 
most were, one a man in long garments, with little children 
and their mothers round him, who was laying his hand upon 
the children s heads. That was a very pretty picture, Tom 
thought, to hang in a lady’s room. For he could see that 
it was a lady’s room by the dresses which lay about. 

The other picture was that of a man nailed to a cross, 
which surprised Tom much. He fancied that he had seen 
something like it in a shop-window. But why was it there 
“ Poor man,” thought Tom, “ and he looks so kind and 
quiet. But why should the lady have such a sad picture as 
that in her room ? Perhaps it was some kinsman of hers, 
who had been murdered by the savages in foreign parts, and 
she kept it there for a remembrance.” And Tom felt sad, 
and awed, and turned to look at something else. 

The next thing he saw, and that too puzzled him, was a 
washing-stand, with ewers and basins, and soap and brushes, 
and towels, and a large bath full of clean water — what a 
heap of things all for washing ! “She must be a very dirty 
lady,” thought Tom, “ by my master’s rule, to want as much 
scrubbing as all that. But she must be very cunning to put 
the dirt out of the way so well afterwards, for I don’t see a 
speck about the room, not even on the very towels.” 


The Water- Babies 


And then, looking toward the bed, he saw that dirty lady, 
and held his breath with astonishment. 

Under the snow-white coverlet, upon the snow-white pil- 
low, lay the most beautiful little girl that Tom had ever seen. 
Her cheeks were almost as white as the pillow, and her hair 
was like threads of gold spread all about over the bed. She 
might have been as old as Tom, or maybe a year or two 
older ; but Tom did not think of that. He thought only of 
her delicate skin and golden hair, and wondered whether she 
was a real live person, or one of the wax dolls he had seen in 
the shops. But when he saw her breathe, he made up his 
mind that she was alive, and stood staring at her, as if she had 
been an angel out of heaven. 

No. She cannot be dirty. She never could have been 
dirty, thought Tom to himself. And then he thought, 
“ And are all people like that when they are washed ? ” 
And he looked at his own wrist, and tried to rub the 
soot off, and wondered whether it ever would come off. 
“ Certainly I should look much prettier then, if I grew 
at all like her.” 

And looking round, he suddenly saw, standing close to 
him, a little ugly, black, ragged figure, with bleared eyes 
and grinning white teeth. He turned on it angrily. What 
did such a little black ape want in that sweet young lady’s 
room .? And behold, it was himself, reflected in a great 
mirror the like of which Tom had never seen before. 

And Tom, for the first time in his life, found out that he 
was dirty ; and burst into tears with shame and anger ; and 
turned to sneak up the chimney again and hide ; and upset 
the fender and threw the fire-irons down, with a noise as of 
ten thousand tin-kettles tied to ten thousand mad dogs’ tails. 


17 


The Water-Babies 


Up jumped the little white lady in her bed, and, seeing 
Tom, screamed as shrill as any peacock. In rushed a 
stout old nurse from the next room, and seeing Tom like- 
wise, made up her mind that he had come to rob, plunder, 
destroy, and burn ; and dashed at him, as he lay over 
the fender, so fast that she caught him by the jacket. 

But she did not hold him. Tom had been in a police- 
man’s hands many a time, and out of them too, what is 
more ; and he would have been ashamed to face his friends 
for ever if he had been stupid enough to be caught by an old 
woman ; so he doubled under the good lady’s arm, across the 
room, and out of the window in a moment. 

He did not need to drop out, though he would have done 
so bravely enough. Nor even to let himself down a spout, 
which would have been an old game to him ; for once 
he got up by a spout to the church roof, he said to take 
jackdaws’ eggs, but the policeman said to steal lead ; and, 
when he was seen on high, sat there till the sun got too hot, 
and came down by another spout, leaving the policemen 
to go back to the stationhouse and eat their dinners. 

But all under the window spread a tree, with great leaves 
and sweet 'white flowers, almost as big as his head. It was 
magnolia, I suppose ; but Tom knew nothing about that, and 
cared less ; for down the tree he went, like a cat, and across 
the garden lawn, and over the iron railings, and up the park 
towards the wood, leaving the old nurse to scream murder 
and fire at the window. 

The under gardener, mowing, saw Tom, and threw down 
his scythe ; caught his leg in it, and cut his shin open, 
whereby he kept his bed for a week ; but in his hurry he 
never knew it, and gave chase to poor Tom. The dairy- 

18 


The Water-Babies 


maid heard the noise, got the churn between her knees, and 
tumbled over it, spilling all the cream ; and yet she jumped 
up, and gave chase to Tom. A groom cleaning Sir Johns 
hack at the stables let him go loose, whereby he kicked 
himself lame in five minutes ; but he ran out and gave chase 
to Tom. Grimes upset the soot-sack in the new-gravelled 
yard, and spoilt it all utterly; but he ran out and gave chase 
to Tom. The old steward opened the park-gate in such 
a hurry, that he hung up his pony’s chin upon the spikes, 
and, for aught I know, it hangs there still ; but he jumped 
off, and gave chase to Tom. The ploughman left his horses 
at the headland, and one jumped over the fence, and pulled 
the other into the ditch, plough and all ; but he ran on, and 
gave chase to Tom. The keeper, who was taking a stoat 
out of a trap, let the stoat go, and caught his own finger; 
but he jumped up, and ran after Tom ; and considering what 
he said, and how he looked, I should have been sorry for 
Tom if he had caught him. Sir John looked out of his study 
window (for he was an early old gentleman) and up at the 
nurse, and a marten dropped mud in his eye, so that he had 
at last to send for the doctor ; and yet he ran out, and gave 
chase to Tom. The Irishwoman, too, was walking up to 
the house to beg, — she must have got round by some byway, 
— but she threw away her bundle, and gave chase to Tom 
likewise. Only my Lady did not give chase ; for when she 
had put her head out of the window, her night-wig fell into 
the garden, and she had to ring up her lady’s-maid, and 
send her down for it privately, which quite put her out 
of the running, so that she came in nowhere, and is conse- 
quently not placed. 

In a word, never was there heard at Hall Place — not even 


19 


The Water-Babies 


when the fox was killed in the conservatory, among acres of 
broken glass, and tons of smashed flower-pots — such a noise, 
row, hubbub, babel, shindy, hullabaloo, stramash, charivari, 
and total contempt of dignity, repose, and order, as that day, 
when Grimes, gardener, the groom, the dairymaid. Sir John, 
the steward, the ploughman, the keeper, and the Irish- 
woman, all ran up the park, shouting “Stop thief,'* in the 
belief that Tom had at least a thousand pounds’ worth of 
jewels in his empty pockets ; and the very magpies and jays 
followed Tom up, screaking and screaming, as if he were 
a hunted fox, beginning to droop his brush. 

And all the while poor Tom paddled up the park with 
his little bare feet, like a small black gorilla fleeing to the 
forest. Alas for him ! there was no big father gorilla therein 
to take his part — to scratch out the gardener’s inside with 
one paw, toss the dairymaid into a tree with another, and 
wrench off Sir John’s head with a third, while he cracked 
the keeper’s skull with his teeth as easily as if it had been 
a cocoa-nut or a paving-stone. 

However, Tom did not remember ever having had a 
father ; so he did not look for one, and expected to have 
to take care of himself ; while as for running, he could keep 
up for a couple of miles with any stage-coach, if there was 
the chance of a copper or a cigar-end, and turn coach-wheels 
on his hands and feet ten times following, which is more 
than you can do. Wherefore his pursuers found it very 
difficult to catch him ; and we will hope that they did not 
catch him at all. 

Tom, of course, made for the woods. He had never 
been in a wood in his life; but he was sharp enough to 
know that he might hide in a bush, or swarm up a tree. 


20 


The Water-Babies 


and, altogether, had more chance there than in the open. 
If he had not known that, he would have been foolisher 
than a mouse or a minnow. 

But when he got into the wood, he found it a very 
different sort of place from what he had fancied. He 
pushed into a thick cover of rhododendrons, and found him- 
self at once caught in a trap. The boughs laid hold of his 
legs and arms, poked him in his face and his stomach, made 
him shut his eyes tight (though that was no great loss, for 
he could not see at best a yard before his nose) ; and when 
he got through the rhododendrons, the hassock-grass and 
sedges tumbled him over, and cut his poor little fingers 
afterwards most spitefully ; the birches birched him as 
soundly as if he had been a nobleman at Eton, and over the 
face too (which is not fair swishing, as all brave boys will 
agree) ; and the lawyers tripped him up, and tore his shins 
as if they had sharks’ teeth — which lawyers are likely 
enough to have. 

“I must get out of this,"’ thought Tom, ‘‘or I shall stay 
here till somebody comes to help me — which is just what I 
don’t want.” 

But how to get out was the difficult matter. And indeed 
I don’t think he would ever have got out at all, but have 
stayed there till the cock-robins covered him with leaves, 
if he had not suddenly run his head against a wall. 

Now running your head against a wall is not pleasant, 
especially if it is a loose wall, with the stones all set on edge, 
and a sharp cornered one hits you between the eyes and 
makes you see all manner of beautiful stars. The stars are 
very beautiful, certainly ; but unfortunately they go in the 
twenty-thousandth part of a split second, and the pain which 


The Water-Babies 


comes after them does not. And so Tom hurt his head; 
but he was a brave boy, and did not mind that a penny. 
He guessed that over the wall the cover would end ; and 
up it he went, and over like a squirrel. 

And there he was, out on the great grouse-moors, which 
the country folk called Harthover Fell — heather and bog 
and rock, stretching away and up, up to the very sky. 

Now, Tom was a cunning fellow — as cunning as an old 
Exmoor stag. Why not .? Though he was but ten years 
old, he had lived longer than most stags, and had more wits 
to start with into the bargain. 

He knew as well as a stag that if he backed he might 
throw the hounds out. So the first thing he did when 
he was over the wall was to make the neatest double sharp to 
his right, and run along under the wall for nearly half a mile. 

Whereby Sir John, and the keeper, and the steward, and 
the gardener, and the ploughman, and the dairymaid, and all 
the hue-and-cry together, went on ahead half a mile in the 
very opposite direction, and inside the wall, leaving him a 
mile off on the outside ; while Tom heard their shouts die 
away in the woods and chuckled to himself merrily. 

At last he came to a dip in the land, and went to the 
bottom of it, and then he turned bravely away from the wall 
and up the moor ; for he knew that he had put a hill 
between him and his enemies, and could go on without their 
seeing him. 

But the Irishwoman, alone of them all, had seen which 
way Tom went. She had kept ahead of every one the 
whole time ; and yet she neither walked nor ran. She 
went along quite smoothly and gracefully, while her feet 
twinkled past each other so fast that you could not see 


22 


The Water-Babies 


which was foremost ; till every one asked the other who 
the strange woman was ; and all agreed, for want of any- 
thing better to say, that she must be in league with Tom. 

But when she came to the plantation, they lost sight 
of her ; and they could do no less. For she went quietly 
over the wall after Tom, and followed him wherever he 
went. Sir John and the rest saw no more of her ; and 
out of sight was out of mind. 

And now Tom was right away into the heather, over just 
such a moor as those in which you have been bred, except 
that there were rocks and stones lying about everywhere, 
and that, instead of the moor growing flat as he went 
upwards, it grew more and more broken and hilly, but 
not so rough but that little Tom could jog along well 
enough, and find time, too, to stare about at the strange 
place, which was like a new world to him. 

He saw great spiders there, with crowns and crosses 
marked on their backs, who sat in the middle of their webs, 
and when they saw Tom coming, shook them so fast that 
they became invisible. Then he saw lizards, brown and gray 
and green, and thought they were snakes, and would sting 
him ; but they were as much frightened as he, and shot 
away into the heath. And then, under a rock, he saw 
a pretty sight — a great brown, sharp-nosed creature, with 
a white tag to her brush, and round her four or five smutty 
little cubs, the funniest fellows Tom ever saw. She lay on 
her back, rolling about, and stretching out her legs and head 
and tail in the bright sunshine ; and the cubs jumped over 
her, and ran round her, and nibbled her paws, and lugged her 
about by the tail ; and she seemed to enjoy it mightily. But 
one selfish little fellow stole away from the rest to a dead 


23 


The Water-Babies 


crow close by, and dragged it off to hide it, though it was 
nearly as big as he was. Whereat all his little brothers set 
off after him in full cry, and saw Tom ; and then all ran 
back, and up jumped Mrs. Vixen, and caught one up in her 
mouth, and the rest toddled after her, and into a dark crack 
in the rocks ; and there was an end of the show. 

And next he had a fright ; for, as he scrambled up a 
sandy brow — whirr-poof-poof-cock-cock-kick — something 
went off in his face, with a most horrid noise. He thought 
the ground had blown up, and the end of the world come. 

And when he opened his eyes (for he shut them very 
tight) it was only an old cock-grouse, who had been washing 
himself in sand, like an Arab, for want of water ; and who, 
when Tom had all but trodden on him, jumped up with a 
noise like the express train, leaving his wife and children to 
shift for themselves, like an old coward, and went off, scream- 
ing “ Cur-ru-u-uck, cur-ru-u-uck — murder, thieves, fire — 
cur-u-uck-cock-kick — the end of the world is come — kick- 
kick-cock-kick.” He was always fancying that the end of 
the world was come, when anything happened which was 
farther off than the end of his own nose. But the end of the 
world was not come, any more than the twelfth of August 
was ; though the old grouse-cock was quite certain of it. 

So the old grouse came back to his wife and family an 
hour afterwards, and said solemnly, “ Cock-cock-kick ; my 
dears, the end of the world is not quite come ; but I assure 
you it is coming the day after to-morrow — cock.” But his 
wife had heard that so often that she knew all about it, and a 
little more. And, besides, she was the mother of a family, 
and had seven little poults to wash and feed every day ; and 
that made her very practical, and a little sharp-tempered ; so 


24 


The Water-Babies 


all she answered was : “ Kick-kick-kick — go and catch 
spiders, go and catch spiders — kick.” 

So Tom went on and on, he hardly knew why ; but he 
liked the great wide strange place, and the cool fresh bracing 
air. But he went more and more slowly as he got higher up 
the hill ; for now the ground grew very bad ii^ed. Instead 
of soft turf and springy heather, he met gr^^ patches of flat 
limestone rock, just like ill-made pavements, with deep 
cracks between the stones and ledges, filler with ferns ; so he 
had to hop from stone to stone, and now and then he 
slipped in between, and hurt his little bare toes, though they 
were tolerably tough ones ; but still he would go on and up, 
he could not tell why. 

What would Tom have said if he had seen, walking over 
the moor behind him, the very same Irishwoman who had 
taken his part upon the road ? But whether it was that he 
looked too little behind him, or whether it was that she kept 
out of sight behind the rocks and knolls, he never saw her, 
though she saw him. 

And now he began to get a little hungry, and very thirsty ; 
for he had run a long way, and the sun had risen high in 
heaven, and the rock was as hot as an oven, and the air 
danced reels over it, as it does over a limekiln, till everything 
round seemed quivering and melting in the glare. 

But he could see nothing to eat anywhere, and still less to 
drink. 

The heath was full of bilberries and whimberries ; but 
they were only in flower yet, for it was June. And as 
for water, who can find that on the top of a limestone 
rock ? Now and then he passed by a deep dark swallow- 
hole, going down into the earth, as if it was the chim- 


25 


The Water-Babies 


ney of some dwarf’s house underground ; and more than 
once, as he passed, he could hear water falling, trickling, 
tinkling, many many feet below. How he longed to 
get down to it, and cool his poor baked lips ! But, brave 
little chimney-sweep as he was, he dared not climb down 
such chimneys as those. 

So he went on and on, till his head spun round with the 
heat, and he thought he heard church-bells ringing, a long 
way off. 

“ Ah ! ” he thought, “ where there is a church there will 
be houses and people ; and, perhaps, some one will give me a 
bit and a sup.” So he set off again, to look for the church ; 
for he was sure that he heard the bells quite plain. 

And in a minute more, when he looked round, he stopped 
again, and said, ‘‘ Why, what a big place the world is ! ” 

And so it was; for, from the top of the mountain he 
could see — what could he not see ? 

Behind him, far below, was Harthover, and the dark 
woods, and the shining salmon river ; and on his left, far 
below, was the town, and the smoking chimneys of the col- 
lieries ; and far, far away, the river widened to the shining 
sea ; and little white specks, which were ships, lay on its 
bosom. Before him lay, spread out like a map, great plains, 
and farms, and villages, amid dark knots of trees. They all 
seemed at his very feet ; but he had sense to see that they 
were long miles away. 

And to his right rose moor after moor, hill after hill, till 
they faded away, blue into blue sky. But between him and 
those moors, and really at his very feet, lay something, to 
which, as soon as Tom saw it, he determined to go, for that 
was the place for him. 


26 


The Water-Babies 


A deep, deep green and rocky valley, very narrow, and 
filled with wood ; but through the wood, hundreds of feet 
below him, he could see a clear stream glance. Oh, if he 
could but get down to that stream ! Then, by the stream, 
he saw the roof of a little cottage, and a little garden set out 
in squares and beds. And there was a tiny little red thing 
moving in the garden, ho bigger than a fly. As Tom looked 
down, he saw that it was a woman in a red petticoat. Ah ! 
perhaps she would give him something to eat. And there 
were the church-bells ringing again. Surely there must be a 
village down there. Well, nobody would know him, or 
what had happened at the Place. The news could not have 
got there yet, even if Sir John had set all the policemen in 
the country after him ; and he could get down there in five 
minutes. 

Tom was quite right about the hue-and-cry not having 
got thither ; for he had come without knowing it, the best 
part of ten miles from Harthover ; but he was wrong about 
getting down in five minutes, for the cottage was more than 
a mile off, and a good thousand feet below. 

However, down he went, like a brave little man as he was, 
though he was very footsore, and tired, and hungry, and 
thirsty ; while the church-bells rang so loud, he began to 
think that they must be inside his own head, and the river 
chimed and tinkled far below ; and this was the song which 
it sang : — 


Clear and cool, clear and cool. 

By laughing shallow, and dreaming pool ; 

Cool and clear, cool and clear. 

By shining shingle, and foaming wear ; 


27 


The Water-Babies 


Under the crag where the ouzel sings. 

And the ivied wall where the church-bell rings, 

Undejiled, for the undefiled ; 

Play by me, bathe in me, mother and child. 

Dank and foul, dank and foul. 

By the smoky town in its murky cowl ; 

Foul and dank, foul and dank. 

By wharf and sewer and slimy bank ; 

Darker and darker the farther I go. 

Baser and baser the richer I grow ; 

Who dare sport with the sin-defiled^ 

Shrink from me, turn from me, mother and child. 

Strong and free, strong and free. 

The fioodgates are open, away to the sea. 

Free and strong, free and strong. 

Cleansing my streams as I hurry along. 

To the golden sands, and the leaping bar. 

And the taintless tide that awaits me afar. 

As I lose myself in the infinite main. 

Like a soul that has sinned and is pardoned again. 
Undefiled, for the undefiled ; 

Play by me, bathe in me, mother and child. 

So Tom went down ; and all the while he never saw the 
Irishwoman going down behind him. 


28 



Chapter II 


“ Jnd is there care in heaven ? and is there love 
In heavenly spirits to these creatures base 
That may compassion of their evils move f 
There is : — else much more wretched were the case 
Of men than beasts : But oh ! the exceeding grace 
Of Highest God that loves His creatures so^ 

And all His works with mercy doth embrace^ 

That blessed Angels He sends to and fro^ 

To serve to wicked man^ to serve His wicked foe ! ” 

Spenser. 

A MILE off*, and a thousand feet down. So Tom 
found it ; though it seemed as if he could have 
chucked a pehhle on to the hack of the woman 
in the red petticoat who was weeding in the gar- 
den, or even across the dale to the rocks beyond. For the 
bottom of the valley was just one field broad, and on the 
other side ran the stream ; and above it, gray crag, gray 
down, gray stair, gray moor walled up to heaven. 


29 



The Water-Babies 


A quiet, silent, rich, happy place ; a narrow crack cut 
deep into the earth ; so deep, and so out of the way, that the 
bad bogies can hardly find it out. The name of the place is 
Vendale ; and if you want to see it for yourself, you must go 
up into the High Craven, and search from Bolland Forest 
north by Ingleborough to the Nine Standards and Cross Fell ; 
and if you have not found it, you must turn south, and search 
the Lake Mountains, down to Scaw Fell and the sea ; and 
then, if you have not found it, you must go northward again 
by merry Carlisle, and search the Cheviots all across, from 
Annan Water to Berwick Law ; and then, whether you have 
found Vendale or not, you will have found such a country, 
and such a people as ought to make you proud of being a 
British boy. 

So Tom went to go down ; and first he went down three 
hundred feet of steep heather, mixed up with loose brown 
gritstone, as rough as a file ; which was not pleasant to his 
poor little heels, as he came bump, stump, jump, down the 
steep. And still he thought he could throw a stone into the 
garden. 

Then he went down three hundred feet of limestone ter- 
races, one below the other, as straight as if a carpenter had 
ruled them with his ruler and then cut them out with his 
chisel. There was no heath there, but — 

First, a little grass slope, covered with the prettiest flowers, 
rockrose and saxifrage, and thyme and basil, and all sorts of 
sweet herbs. 

Then bump down a two-foot step of limestone. 

Then another bit of grass and flowers. 

Then bump down a one-foot step. 

Then another bit of grass and flowers for fifty yards, as 


30 


The Water-Babies 

Steep as the house-roof, where he had to slide down on his 
dear little tail. 

Then another step of stone, ten feet high; and there he 
had to stop himself, and crawl along the edge to find a 
crack ; for if he had rolled over, he would have rolled right 
into the old woman’s garden, and frightened her out of 
her wits. 

Then, when he had found a dark narrow crack, full of 
green-stalked fern, such as hangs in the basket in the 
drawing-room, and had crawled down through it, with 
knees and elbows, as he would down a chimney, there was 
another grass slope, and another step, and so on, till — oh, 
dear me ! I wish it was all over ; and so did he. And 
yet he thought he could throw a stone into the old woman’s 
garden. 

At last he came to a bank of beautiful shrubs ; white- 
beam with its great silver-backed leaves, and mountain-ash, 
and oak ; and below them cliff and crag, cliff and crag, with 
great beds of crown-ferns and wood-sedge ; while through 
the shrubs he could see the stream sparkling, and hear it 
murmur on the white pebbles. He did not know that it 
was three hundred feet below. 

You would have been giddy, perhaps, at looking down: 
but Tom was not. He was a brave little chimney-sweep; 
and when he found himself on the top of a high cliff, 
instead of sitting down and crying for his baba (though he 
never had had any baba to cry for), he said, “ Ah, this will 
just suit me ! ” though he was very tired ; and down he 
went, by stock and stone, sedge and ledge, bush and rush, 
as if he had been born a jolly little black ape, with four 
hands instead of two. 


31 


The Water-Babies 


And all the while he never saw the Irishwoman coming 
down behind him. 

But he was getting terribly tired now. The burning sun 
on the fells had sucked him up ; but the damp heat of the 
woody crag sucked him up still more; and the perspiration 
ran out of the ends of his fingers and toes, and washed him 
cleaner than he had been for a whole year. But, of course, 
he dirtied everything terribly as he went. There has been 
a great black smudge all down the crag ever since. And 
there have been more black beetles in Vendale since than 
ever were known before ; all, of course, owing to Tom’s 
having blacked the original papa of them all, just as he was 
setting off to be married, with a sky-blue coat and scarlet 
leggings, as smart as a gardener’s dog with a polyanthus in 
his mouth. 

At last he got to the bottom. But, behold, it was not the 
bottom — as people usually find when they are coming down 
a mountain. For at the foot of the crag were heaps and 
heaps of fallen limestone of every size from that of your head 
to that of a stage- waggon, with holes between them full of 
sweet heath-fern ; and before Tom got through them, he 
was out in the bright sunshine again ; and then he felt once 
for all and suddenly, as people generally do, that he was 
b-e-a-t, beat. 

You must expect to be beat a few times in your life, little 
man, if you live such a life as a man ought to live, let you be 
as strong and healthy as you may : and when you are, you 
will find it a very ugly feeling. I hope that that day you 
may have a stout staunch friend by you who is not beat ; for, 
if you have not, you had best lie where you are, and wait for 
better times, as poor Tom did. 


32 


The Water-Babies 


He could not get on. The sun was burning, and yet he 
felt chill all over. He was quite empty, and yet he felt 
quite sick. There was but two hundred yards of smooth 
pasture between him and the cottage, and yet he could not 
walk down it. He could hear the stream murmuring only 
one field beyond it, and yet it seemed to him as if it was a 
hundred miles off. 

He lay down on the grass till the beetles ran over him, 
and the flies settled on his nose. I don’t know when he 
would have got up again, if the gnats and the midges had 
not taken compassion on him. But the gnats blew their 
trumpets so loud in his ear, and the midges nibbled so at his 
hands and face wherever they could find a place free from 
soot, that at last he woke up, and stumbled away, down 
over a low wall, and into a narrow road, and up to the 
cottage-door. 

And a neat pretty cottage it was, with clipped yew 
hedges all round the garden, and yews inside too, cut into 
peacocks and trumpets and teapots and all kinds of queer 
shapes. And out of the open door came a noise like that 
of the frogs on the Great-A, when they know that it is 
going to be scorching hot to-morrow — and how they 
know that I don’t know, and you don’t know, and nobody 
knows. 

He came slowly up to the open door, which was all 
hung round with clematis and roses; and then peeped in, 
half afraid. 

And there sat by the empty fireplace, which was filled 
with a pot of sweet herbs, the nicest old woman that ever 
was seen, in her red petticoat, and short dimity bedgown, and 
clean white cap, with a black silk handkerchief over it, tied 


3 


33 


The Water-Babies 


under her chin. At her feet sat the grandfather of all the 
cats ; and opposite her sat, on two benches, twelve or four- 
teen neat, rosy, chubby little children, learning their Chris- 
cross-row ; and gabble enough they made about it. 

Such a pleasant cottage it was, with a shiny clean stone 
floor, and curious old prints on the walls, and an old black 
oak sideboard full of bright pewter and brass dishes, and a 
cuckoo clock in the corner, which began shouting as soon as 
Tom appeared : not that it was frightened at Tom, but that 
it was just eleven o’clock. 

All the children started at Toms dirty black figure, — 
the girls began to cry, and the boys began to laugh, and all 
pointed at him rudely enough ; but Tom was too tired to 
care for that. 

‘‘What art thou, and what dost want.?” cried the old 
dame. “ A chimney-sweep ! Away with thee ! I ’ll have 
no sweeps here.” 

“ Water,” said poor little Tom, quite faint. 

“Water? There’s plenty i’ the beck,” she said, quite 
sharply. 

“ But I can’t get there ; I ’m most clemmed with hun- 
ger and drought.” And Tom sank down upon the door- 
step, and laid his head against the post. 

And the old dame looked at him through her spectacles 
one minute, and two, and three; and then she said, “He’s 
sick; and a bairn’s a bairn, sweep or none.” 

“Water,” said Tom. 

“ God forgive me ! ” and she put by her spectacles, and 
rose, and came to Tom. “Water’s bad for thee; I’ll give 
thee milk.” And she toddled off into the next room, and 
brought a cup of milk and a bit of bread. 


34 






The Water-Babies 

Tom drank the milk off at one draught, and then looked 
up, revived. 

‘‘ Where didst come from said the dame. 

“ Over Fell, there,’’ said Tom, and pointed up into the sky. 

“ Over Harthover ? and down Lewthwaite Crag ? Art 
sure thou art not lying ?” 

“ Why should I ! ” said Tom, and leant his head against 
the post. 

“And how got ye up there ? ” 

“I came over from the Place;” and Tom was so tired 
and desperate he had no heart or time to think of a story, so 
he told all the truth in a few words. 

“ Bless thy little heart ! And thou hast not been stealing, 
then?” 

“ No.” 

“ Bless thy little heart ! and I ’ll warrant not. Why, God’s 
guided the bairn, because he was innocent ! Away from 
the Place, and over Harthover Fell, and down Lewthwaite 
Crag ! Who ever heard the like, if God had n’t led him ? 
Why dost not eat thy bread ? ” 

“ I can’t.” 

“It ’s good enough, for I made it myself.” 

“ I can’t,” said Tom, and he laid his head on his knees, 
and then asked — 

“ Is it Sunday ? ” 

“No, then; why should it be?” 

“ Because I hear the church-bells ringing so.” 

“ Bless thy pretty heart ! The bairn ’s sick. Come wi’ 
me, and I ’ll hap thee up somewhere. If thou wert a bit 
cleaner I ’d put thee in my own bed, for the Lord’s sake. 
But come along here.” 


35 


The Water-Babies 

But when Tom tried to get up, he was so tired and giddy 
that she had to help him and lead him. 

She put him in an outhouse upon soft sweet hay and an 
old rug, and bade him sleep off his walk, and she would come 
to him when school was over, in an hour’s time. 

And so she went in again, expecting Tom to fall fast 
asleep at once. 

But Tom did not fall asleep. 

Instead of it he turned and tossed and kicked about in 
the strangest way, and felt so hot all over that he longed 
to get into the river and cool himself ; and then he fell 
half asleep, and dreamt that he heard the little white lady 
crying to him, “ Oh, you *re so dirty ; go and be washed ; ” 
and then that he heard the Irishwoman saying, “ Those 
that wish to be clean, clean they will be.” And then he 
heard the church-bells ring so loud, close to him too, that 
he was sure it must be Sunday, in spite of what the old 
dame had said ; and he would go to church, and see what 
a church was like inside, for he had never been in one, 
poor little fellow, in all his life. But the people would 
never let him come in, all over soot and dirt like that. 
He must go to the river and wash first. And he said out 
loud again and again, though being half asleep he did not 
know it, “ I must be clean, I must be clean.” 

And all of a sudden he found himself, not in the out- 
house on the hay, but in the middle of a meadow, over 
the road, with the stream just before him, saying continu- 
ally, “I must be clean, I must be clean.” He had got 
there on his own legs, between sleep and awake, as chil- 
dren will often get out of bed, and go about the room, 
when they are not quite well. But he was not a bit sur- 

36 


The Water-Babies 


prised, and went on to the bank of the brook, and lay 
down on the grass, and looked into the clear, clear lime- 
stone water, with every pebble at the bottom bright and 
clean, while the little silver trout dashed about in fright at 
the sight of his black face ; and he dipped his hand in and 
found it so cool, cool, cool ; and he said, “ I will be a fish ; 
I will swim in the water ; I must be clean, I must be 
clean.” 

So he pulled off all his clothes in such haste that he 
tore some of them, which was easy enough with such rag- 
ged old things. And he put his poor hot sore feet into 
the water ; and then his legs ; and the farther he went in, 
the more the church-bells rang in his head. 

“ Ah,” said Tom, “ I must be quick and wash myself ; 
the bells are ringing quite loud now ; and they will stop 
soon, and then the door will be shut, and I shall never be 
able to get in at all.” 

Tom was mistaken : for in England the church doors 
are left open all service time, for everybody who likes to 
come in. Churchman or Dissenter; ay, even if he were a 
Turk or a Heathen ; and if any man dared to turn him out, 
as long as he behaved quietly, the good old English law 
would punish that man, as he deserved, for ordering any 
peaceable person out of God’s house, which belongs to all 
alike. But Tom did not know that, any more than he 
knew a great deal more which people ought to know. 

And all the while he never saw the Irishwoman, not 
behind him this time, but before. 

For just before he came to the river side, she had stept 
down into the cool clear water ; and her shawl and her petti- 
coat floated off her, and the green water-weeds floated round 


37 


The Water-Babies 


her sides, and the white water-lilies floated round her head, 
and the fairies of the stream came up from the bottom and 
bore her away and down upon their arms ; for she was the 
Queen of them all ; and perhaps of more besides. 

“ Where have you been ? ” they asked her. 

“ I have been smoothing sick folks’ pillows, and whisper- 
ing sweet dreams into their ears ; opening cottage case- 
ments, to let out the stifling air ; coaxing little children 

away from gutters, and foul pools where fever breeds ; turn- 
ing women from the gin-shop door, and staying men’s 

hands as they were going to strike their wives ; doing all 
I can to help those who will not help themselves: and 
little enough that is, and weary work for me. But I have 
brought you a new little brother, and watched him safe all 
the way here.” 

Then all the fairies laughed for joy at the thought that 
they had a little brother coming. 

“ But mind, maidens, he must not see you, or know that 
you are here. He is but a savage now, and like the beasts 
which perish ; and from the beasts which perish he must 
learn. So you must not play with him, or speak to him, or 
let him see you ; but only keep him from being harmed.” 

Then the fairies were sad, because they could not play 
with their new brother, but they always did what they were 
told. 

And their Queen floated away down the river ; and whither 
she went, thither she came. But all this Tom, of course, 
never saw or heard : and perhaps if he had it would have 
made little difference in the story ; for he was so hot and 
thirsty, and longed so to be clean for once, that he tumbled 
himself as quick as he could into the clear cool stream. 

38 


The Water-Babies 


And he had not been in it two minutes before he fell fast 
asleep, into the quietest, sunniest, cosiest sleep that ever he 
had in his life ; and he dreamt about the green meadows by 
which he had walked that morning, and the tall elm-trees, and 
the sleeping cows ; and after that he dreamt of nothing at all. 

The reason of his falling into such a delightful sleep is 
very simple ; and yet hardly any one has found it out. It 
was merely that the fairies took him. 

Some people think that there are no fairies. Cousin 
Cramchild tells little folks so in his Conversations. Well, 
perhaps there are none — in Boston, U.S., where he was 
raised. There are only a clumsy lot of spirits there, who 
can’t make people hear without thumping on the table ; but 
they get their living thereby, and I suppose that is all they 
want. And Aunt Agitate, in her Arguments on political 
economy, says there are none. Well, perhaps there are none 
— in her political economy. But it is a wide world, my 
little man — and thank Heaven for it, for else, between 
crinolines and theories, some of us would get squashed — 
and plenty of room in it for fairies, without people seeing 
them ; unless, of course, they look in the right place. The 
most wonderful and the strongest things in the world, you 
know, are just the things which no one can see. There is 
life in you ; and it is the life in you which makes you grow, 
and move, and think : and yet you can’t see it. And there 
is steam in a steam-engine ; and that is what makes it move : 
and yet you can’t see it; and so there may be fairies in the 
world, and they may be just what makes the world go round 
to the old tune of 

“ Cest r amour y I' amour , I" amour 
fait le monde 2i la ronde : ” 

39 


The Water-Babies 


and yet no one may be able to see them except those whose 
hearts are going round to that same tune. At all events, we 
will make believe that there are fairies in the world. It will 
not be the last time by many a one that we shall have to 
make believe. And yet, after all, there is no need for that. 
There must be fairies ; for this is a fairy tale : and how can 
one have a fairy tale if there are no fairies ? 

You don’t see the logic of that? Perhaps not. Then 
please not to see the logic of a great many arguments exactly 
like it, which you will hear before your beard is gray. 

The kind old dame came back at twelve, when school was 
over, to look at Tom : but there was no Tom there. She 
looked about for his footprints ; but the ground was so hard 
that there was no slot, as they say in dear old North Devon. 
And if you grow up to be a brave healthy man, you may 
know some day what no slot means, and know too, I hope, 
what a slot does mean — a broad slot, with blunt claws, 
which makes a man put out his cigar, and set his teeth, and 
tighten his girths, when he sees it; and what his rights 
mean, if he has them, brow, bay, tray, and points; and see 
something worth seeing between Haddon Wood and Countis- 
bury Cliff, with good Mr. Palk Collyns to show you the way, 
and mend your bones as fast as you smash them. Only when 
that jolly day comes, please don’t break your neck; stogged 
in a mire you never will be, I trust; for you are a heath- 
cropper bred and born. 

So the old dame went in again quite sulky, thinking that 
little Tom had tricked her with a false story, and shammed 
ill, and then run away again. 

But she altered her mind the next day. For, when Sir 
John and the rest of them had run themselves out of 


40 


The Water- Babies 

breath, and lost Tom, they went back again, looking very 
foolish. 

And they looked more foolish still when Sir John heard 
more of the story from the nurse ; and more foolish still, 
again, when they heard the whole story from Miss Elbe, the 
little lady in white. All she had seen was a poor little black 
chimney-sweep, crying and sobbing, and going to get up the 
chimney again. Of course, she was very much frightened : 
and no wonder. But that was all. The boy had taken 
nothing in the room ; by the mark of his little sooty feet, 
they could see that he had never been off the hearthrug till 
the nurse caught hold of him. It was all a mistake. 

So Sir John told Grimes to go home, and promised him 
five shillings if he would bring the boy quietly up to him, 
without beating him, that he might be sure of the truth. For 
he took for granted, and Grimes too, that Tom had made 
his way home. 

But no Tom came back to Mr. Grimes that evening; and 
he went to the police-office, to tell them to look out for the 
boy. But no Tom was heard of. As for his having gone 
over those great fells to Vendale, they no more dreamed of 
that than of his having gone to the moon. 

So Mr. Grimes came up to Harthover next day with a 
very sour face ; but when he got there. Sir John was over 
the hills and far away ; and Mr. Grimes had to sit in the 
outer servants’ hall all day, and drink strong ale to wash away 
his sorrows; and they were washed away long before Sir 
John came back. 

For good Sir John had slept very badly that night; and he 
said to his lady, “ My dear, the boy must have got over into 
the grouse-moors, and lost himself; and he lies very heavily 


41 


The Water-Babies 


on my conscience, poor little lad. But I know what I will 
do.” 

So, at five the next morning up he got, and into his 
bath, and into his shooting-jacket and gaiters, and into the 
stableyard, like a fine old English gentleman, with a face 
as red as a rose, and a hand as hard as a table, and a 
back as broad as a bullock’s ; and bade them bring his 
shooting pony, and the keeper to come on his pony, and 
the huntsman, and the first whip, and the second whip, and 
the underkeeper with the bloodhound in a leash — a great 
dog as tall as a calf, of the colour of a gravel-walk, with 
mahogany ears and nose, and a throat like a church-bcll. 
They took him up to the place where Tom had gone into 
the wood ; and there the hound lifted up his mi 
and told them all he knew. 

Then he took them to the place where Tom had climbed 
the wall; and they shoved it down, and all got through. 

And then the wise dog took them over the moor, and 
over the fells, step by step, very slowly ; for the scent was 
a day old, you know, and very light from the heat and 
drought. But that was why cunning old Sir John started 
at five in the morning. 

And at last he came to the top of Lewthwaite Crag, 
and there he bayed, and looked up in their faces, as much 
as to say, ‘‘ I tell you he is gone down here ! ” 

They could hardly believe that Tom would have gone 
so far; and when they looked at that awful cliff, they 
could never believe that he would have dared to face it. 
But if the dog said so, it must be true. 

‘‘ Heaven forgive us ! ” said Sir John. ‘‘ If we find 
him at all, we shall find him lying at the bottom.'* 


ghty voice. 


\ 


42 


The Water-Babies 

And he slapped his great hand upon his great thigh, and 
said — 

“ Who will go down over Lewthwaite Crag, and see if 
that boy is alive ? Oh that I were twenty years younger, 
and I would go down myself! ” And so he would have 
done, as well as any sweep in the county. Then he said — 

“ Twenty pounds to the man who brings me that boy 
alive ! and as was his way, what he said he meant. 

Now among the lot was a little groom-boy, a very little 
groom indeed ; and he was the same who had ridden up the 
court, and told Tom to come to the Hall ; and he said — 

“ Twenty pounds or none, I will go down over Lewth- 
waite Crag, if it ’s only for the poor boy’s sake. For he 
was as civil a spoken little chap as ever climbed a flue.” 

So down over Lewthwaite Crag he went : a very smart 
groom he was at the top, and a very shabby one at the bot- 
tom ; for he tore his gaiters, and he tore his breeches, and 
he tore his jacket, and he burst his braces, and he burst 
his boots, and he lost his hat, and what was worst of all, 
he lost his shirt pin, which he prized very much, for it was 
gold, and he had won it in a raffle at Malton, and there was 
a figure at the top of it, of t’ould mare, noble old Beeswing 
herself, as natural as life ; so it was a really severe loss : but 
he never saw anything of Tom. 

And all the while Sir John and the rest were riding round, 
full three miles to the right, and back again, to get into Ven- 
dale, and to the foot of the crag. 

When they came to the old dame’s school, all the children 
came out to see. And the old dame came out too ; and 
when she saw Sir John, she curtsied very low, for she was 
a tenant of his. 


43 


The Water-Babies 


“ Well, dame, and how are you ? ” said Sir John. 

“Blessings on you as broad as your back, Harthover,” says 
she — she did n’t call him Sir John, but only Harthover, for 
that is the fashion in the North country — “ and welcome 
into Vendale : but you ’re no hunting the fox this time of 
the year ” 

“ I am hunting, and strange game too,” said he. 

“ Blessings on your heart, and what makes you look so 
sad the morn ? ” 

“ I ’m looking for a lost child, a chimney-sweep, that is 
run away.” 

“ Oh, Harthover, Harthover,” says she, “ ye were always 
a just man and a merciful ; and ye ’ll no harm the poor 
little lad if I give you tidings of him ? ” 

“Not I, not I, dame. I ’m afraid we hunted him out 
of the house all on a miserable mistake, and the hound has 
brought him to the top of Lewthwaite Crag, and ” 

Whereat the old dame broke out crying, without letting 
him finish his story. 

“ So he told me the truth after all, poor little dear ! Ah, 
first thoughts are best, and a body’s heart ’ll guide them right, 
if they will but hearken to it.” And then she told Sir 
John all. 

“ Bring the dog here, and lay him on,” Sir John, without 
another word, and he set his teeth very hard. 

And the dog opened at once ; and went away at the back 
of the cottage, over the road, and over the meadow, and 
through a bit of alder copse ; and there, upon an alder 
stump, they saw Tom’s clothes lying. And then they knew 
as much about it all as there was any need to know. 

And Tom ? 


44 


The Water-Babies 


Ah, now comes the most wonderful part of this wonderful 
story. Tom, when he woke, for of course he woke — 
children always wake after they have slept exactly as long 
as is good for them — found himself swimming about in the 
stream, being about four inches, or — that I may be accurate 
— 3*87902 inches long, and having round the parotid region 
of his fauces a set of external gills (I hope you understand all 
the big words) just like those of a sucking eft, which he mis- 
took for a lace frill, till he pulled at them, found he hurt 
himself, and made up his mind that they were part of him- 
self, and best left alone. 

In fact, the fairies had turned him into a water-baby. 

A water-baby ? You never heard of a water-baby. Per- 
haps not. That is the very reason why this story was written. 
There are a great many things in the world which you never 
heard of ; and a great many more which nobody ever heard 
of ; and a great many things, too, which nobody will ever 
hear of, at least until the coming of the Cocqcigrues, when 
man shall be the measure of all things. 

“ But there are no such things as water-babies.’* 

How do you know that .? Have you been there to see ? 
And if you had been there to see, and had seen none, that would 
not prove that there were none. If Mr. Garth does not find 
a fox in Eversley Wood — as folks sometimes fear he never 
will — that does not prove that there are no such things as 
foxes. And as is Eversley Wood to all the woods in England, so 
are the waters we know to all the waters in the world. And 
no one has a right to say that no water-babies exist, till they 
have seen no water-babies existing ; which is quite a different 
thing, mind, from not seeing water-babies ; and a thing which 
nobody ever did, or perhaps ever will do. 


45 


The Water-Babies 


“ But surely if there were water-babies, somebody would 
have caught one at least ? 

Well. How do you know that somebody has not ? 

“ But they would have put it into spirits, or into the Illus- 
trated News, or perhaps cut it into two halves, poor dear little 
thing, and sent one to Professor Owen, and one to Professor 
Huxley, to see what they would each say about it.” 

Ah, my dear little man ! that does not follow at all, as 
you will see before the end of the story. 

“But a water-baby is contrary to nature.” 

Well, but, my dear little man, you must learn to talk about 
such things, when you grow older, in a very different way 
from that. You must not talk about “ain’t” and “can’t” 
when you speak of this great wonderful world round you, of 
which the wisest man knows only the very smallest corner, and 
is, as the great Sir Isaac Newton said, only a child picking up 
pebbles on the shore of a boundless ocean. 

You must not say that this cannot be, or that that is con- 
trary to nature. You do not know what Nature is, or what 
she can do ; and nobody knows ; not even Sir Roderick Mur- 
chison, or Professor Owen, or Professor Sedgwick, or Profes- 
sor Huxley, or Mr. Darwin, or Professor Faraday, or Mr. 
Grove, or any other of the great men whom good boys are 
taught to respect. They are very wise men; and you must 
listen respectfully to all they say : but even if they should say, 
which I am sure they never would, “ That cannot exist. 
That is contrary to nature,” you must wait a little, and see; 
for perhaps even they may be wrong. It is only children 
who read Aunt Agitate’s Arguments, or Cousin Cramchild’s 
Conversations ; or lads who go to popular lectures, and see a 
man pointing at a few big ugly pictures on the wall, or mak- 

46 


The Water-Babies 


ing nasty smells with bottles and squirts, for an hour or two, 
and calling that anatomy or chemistry — who talk about 
“cannot exist,” and “contrary to nature.” Wise men are 
afraid to say that there is anything contrary to nature, except 
what is contrary to mathematical truth ; for two and two can- 
not make five, and two straight lines cannot join twice, and a 
part cannot be as great as the whole, and so on (at least, so it 
seems at present) : but the wiser men are, the less they talk 
about “ cannot.” That is a very rash, dangerous word, that 
“cannot”; and if people use it too often, the Queen of all 
the Fairies, who makes the clouds thunder and the fleas bite, 
and takes just as much trouble about one as about the other, 
is apt to astonish them suddenly by showing them, that 
though they say she cannot, yet she can, and what is more, 
will, whether they approve or not. 

And therefore it is, that there are dozens and hundreds 
of things in the world which we should certainly have said 
were contrary to nature, if we did not see them going on 
under our eyes all day long. If people had never seen 
little seeds grow into great plants and trees, of quite differ- 
ent shape from themselves, and these trees again produce 
fresh seeds, to grow into fresh trees, they would have said, 
“The thing cannot be; it is contrary to nature.” And they 
would have been quite as right in saying so, as in saying 
that most other things cannot be. 

Or suppose again, that you had come, like M. Du Chaillu, 
a traveller from unknown parts ; and that no human being 
had ever seen or heard of an elephant. And suppose that 
you described him to people, and said, “ This is the shape, 
and plan, and anatomy of the beast, and of his feet, and of 
his trunk, and of his grinders, and of his tusks, though they 


47 


The Water-Babies 


are not tusks at all, but two fore teeth run mad ; and this 
is the section of his skull, more like a mushroom than a 
reasonable skull of a reasonable or unreasonable beast; and 
so forth, and so forth; and though the beast (which I 
assure you I have seen and shot) is first cousin to the little 
hairy coney of Scripture, second cousin to a pig, and (I sus- 
pect) thirteenth or fourteenth cousin to a rabbit, yet he is 
the wisest of all beasts, and can do everything save read, 
write, and cast accounts.” People would surely have said, 
“ Nonsense ; your elephant is contrary to nature ; ” and have 
thought you were telling stories — as the French thought 
of Le Vaillant when he came back to Paris and said that 
he had shot a giraffe; and as the king of the Cannibal 
Islands thought of the English sailor, when he said that in 
his country water turned to marble, and rain fell as feathers. 
They would tell you, the more they knew of science, “Your 
elephant is an impossible monster, contrary to the laws of 
comparative anatomy, as far as yet known.” To which 
you would answer the less, the more you thought. 

Did not learned men, too, hold, till within the last 
twenty-five years, that a flying dragon was an impossible 
monster ? And do we not now know that there are hundreds 
of them found fossil up and down the world } People call 
them Pterodactyles : but that is only because they are 
ashamed to call them flying dragons, after denying so long 
that flying dragons could exist. 

The truth is, that folks’ fancy that such and such things 
cannot be, simply because they have not seen them, is worth 
no more than a savage’s fancy that there cannot be such a 
thing as a locomotive, because he never saw one running 
wild in the forest. Wise men know that their business is 


48 


The Water-Babies 


to examine what is, and not to settle what is not. They 
know that there are elephants; they know that there have 
been flying dragons ; and the wiser they are, the less in- 
clined they will be to say positively that there are no water- 
babies. 

No water-babies, indeed ? Why, wise men of old said 
that everything on earth had its double in the water ; and 
you may see that that is, if not quite true, still quite as true 
as most other theories which you are likely to hear for many 
a day. There are land-babies — then why not water-babies ? 
Are there not water-rats, water-Jlies, water-crickets, water- 
crabs, water-tortoises, water -scorpions, water-tigers and water- 
hogs, water-cats and water-dogs, sea-lions and sea-bears, sea- 
horses and sea-elephants, sea-mice and sea-urchins, sea-razors 
and sea-pens, sea- combs and sea-fans ; and of plants are there 
not water-grass and water -crowfoot, water -milfoil, and so on, 
without end? 

“ But all these things are only nicknames ; the water 
things are not really akin to the land things.” 

That ’s not always true. They are, in millions of cases, 
not only of the same family, but actually the same individ- 
ual creatures. Do not even you know that a green drake, 
and an alder-fly, and a dragon-fly, live under water till they 
change their skins, just as Tom changed his? And if a 
water animal can continually change into a land animal, why 
should not a land animal sometimes change into a water- 
animal ? Don’t be put down by any of Cousin Cramchild’s 
arguments, but stand up to him like a man, and answer him 
(quite respectfully, of course) thus ; — 

If Cousin Cramchild says, that if there are water-babies, 
they must grow into water-men, ask him how he knows that 


4 


49 


The Water-Babies 


they do not? and then, how he knows that they must, any 
more than the Proteus of the Adelsberg caverns grows into 
a perfect newt. 

If he says that it is too strange a transformation for a 
land-baby to turn into a water-baby, ask him if he ever 
heard of the transformation of Syllis, or the Distomas, or 
the common jelly-fish, of which M, Quatrefages says excel- 
lently well — ‘‘ Who would not exclaim that a miracle 
had come to pass, if he saw a reptile come out of the egg 
dropped by the hen in his poultry-yard, and the reptile 
give birth at once to an indefinite number of fishes and 
birds ? Yet the history of the jelly-fish is quite as wonderful 
as that would be.” Ask him if he knows about all this ; 
and if he does not, tell him to go and look for himself ; and 
advise him (very respectfully, of course) to settle no more 
what strange things cannot happen, till he has seen what 
strange things do happen every day. 

If he says that things cannot degrade, that is, change 
downwards into lower forms, ask him, who told him that 
water-babies were lower than land-babies ? But even if they 
were, does he know about the strange degradation of the 
common goose-barnacles, which one finds sticking on ships’ 
bottoms ; or the still stranger degradation of some cousins of 
theirs, of which one hardly likes to talk, so shocking and 
ugly it is ? 

And, lastly, if he says (as he most certainly will) that these 
transformations only take place in the lower animals, and 
not in the higher, say that that seems to little boys, and to 
some grown people, a very strange fancy. For if the 
changes of the lower animals are so wonderful, and so diffi- 
cult to discover, why should not there be changes in the 


50 


The Water-Babies 


higher animals far more wonderful, and far more difficult 
to discover? And may not man, the crown and flower of all 
things, undergo some change as much more wonderful than 
all the rest, as the Great Exhibition is more wonderful than 
a rabbit-burrow ? Let him answer that. And if he says (as 
he will) that not having seen such a change in his experience, 
he is not bound to believe it, ask him respectfully, where his 
microscope has been. Does not each of us, in coming into 
this world, go through a transformation just as wonderful as 
that of a sea-egg, or a butterfly? and do not reason and anal- 
ogy, as well as Scripture, tell us that that transformation is not 
the last ? and that, though what we shall be, we know not, 
yet we are here but as the crawling caterpillar, and shall 
be hereafter as the perfect fly ? The old Greeks, heathens as 
they were, saw as much as that two thousand years ago ; 
and I care very little for Cousin Cramchild, if he sees even 
less than they. And so forth, and so forth, till he is quite 
cross. And then tell him that if there are no water-babies, 
at least there ought to be; and that, at least, he cannot 
answer. 

And meanwhile, my dear little man, till you know a great 
deal more about nature than Professor Owen and Professor 
Huxley put together, don’t tell me about what cannot be, 
or fancy that anything is too wonderful to be true. “We 
are fearfully and wonderfully made,” said old David ; and so 
we are ; and so is everything around us, down to the very 
deal table. Yes ; much more fearfully and wonderfully 
made, already, is the table, as it stands now, nothing but a 
piece of dead deal wood, than if, as foxes say, and geese 
believe, spirits could make it dance, or talk to you by rap- 
ping on it. 


5 


The Water-Babies 


Am I in earnest? Oh dear no ! Don’t you know that 
this is a fairy tale, and all fun and pretence ; and that you 
are not to believe one word of it, even if it is true ? 

But at all events, so it happened to Tom. And, there- 
fore, the keeper, and the groom, and Sir John made a great 
mistake, and were very unhappy (Sir John at least) without 
any reason, when they found a black thing in the water, 
and said it was Tom’s body, and that he had been drowned. 
They were utterly mistaken. Tom was quite alive ; and 
cleaner, and merrier, than he ever had been. The fairies 
had washed him, you see, in the swift river, so thoroughly, 
that not only his dirt, but his whole husk and shell had 
been washed quite off him, and the pretty little real Tom 
was washed out of the inside of it, and swam away, as a 
caddis does when its case of stones and silk is bored through, 
and away it goes on its back, paddling to the shore, there 
to split its skin, and fly away as a caperer, on four fawn- 
coloured wings, with long legs and horns. They are foolish 
fellows, the caperers, and fly into the candle at night, if you 
leave the door open. We will hope Tom will be wiser, 
now he has got safe out of his sooty old shell. 

But good Sir John did not understand all this, not being a 
fellow of the Linnaean Society ; and he took it into his head 
that Tom was drowned. When they looked into the empty 
pockets of his shell, and found no jewels there, nor money — 
nothing but three marbles, and a brass button with a string to 
it — then Sir John did something as like crying as ever he 
did in his life, and blamed himself more bitterly than he need 
have done. So he cried, and the groom-boy cried, and the 
huntsman cried, and the dame cried, and the little girl cried, 
and the dairymaid cried, and the old nurse cried (for it was 


52 


The Water-Babies 


somewhat her fault), and my lady cried, for though people 
have wigs, that is no reason why they should not have hearts ; 
but the keeper did not cry, though he had been so good- 
natured to Tom the morning before ; for he was so dried up 
with running after poachers, that you could no more get tears 
out of him than milk out of leather : and Grimes did not cry, 
for Sir John gave him ten pounds, and he drank it all in a 
week. Sir John sent, far and wide, to find Tom’s father and 
mother : but he might have looked till Doomsday for them, 
for one was dead, and the other was in Botany Bay. And the 
little girl would not play with her dolls for a whole week, and 
never forgot poor little Tom. And soon my lady put a pretty 
little tombstone over Tom’s shell in the little churchyard in 
Vendale, where the old dalesmen all sleep side by side between 
the limestone crags. And the dame decked it with garlands 
every Sunday, till she grew so old that she could not stir 
abroad ; then the little children decked it for her. And al- 
ways she sang an old old song, as she sat spinning what she 
called her wedding-dress. The children could not understand 
it, but they liked it none the less for that ; for it was very 
sweet, and very sad ; and that was enough for them. And 
these are the words of it : — 

When all the world is young, lad. 

And all the trees are green ; 

And every goose a swan, lad. 

And every lass a queen ; 

Then hey for boot and horse, lad. 

And round the world away ; 

Young blood must have its course, lad. 

And every dog his day. 


53 


The Water-Babies 


When all the world is oldy lad. 

And all the trees are brown ; 

And all the sport is stale, lad. 

And all the wheels run down; 

Creep home, and take your place there, 

’The spent and maimed among : 

God grant you find one face there, 

Tou loved when all was young. 

Those are the words : but they are only the body of it : the 
soul of the song was the dear old woman’s sweet face, and 
sweet voice, and the sweet old air to which she sang ; and 
that, alas! one cannot put on paper. And at last she grew 
so stiff and lame, that the angels were forced to carry her ; 
and they helped her on with her wedding-dress, and carried 
her up over Harthover Fells, and a long way beyond that too ; 
and there was a new schoolmistress in Vendale, and we will 
hope that she was not certificated. 

And all the while Tom was swimming about in the river, 
with a pretty little lace-collar of gills about his neck, as lively 
as a grig, and as clean as a fresh-run salmon. 

Now if you don’t like my story, then go to the schoolroom 
and learn your multiplication-table, and see if you like that 
better. Some people, no doubt, would do so. So much the 
better for us, if not for them. It takes all sorts, they say, to 
make a world. 


54 



Chapter III 


“ He prayeth well who loveth well 
Both man and bird and beast ; 
He prayeth best who loveth best 
All things both great and small: 
For the dear God who loveth us. 
He made and loveth all.” 


Coleridge. 



OM was now quite amphibious. You do not 
know what that means ? 


You had better, then, ask the nearest Govern- 


ment pupil-teacher, who may possibly answer you 


smartly enough, thus — 

“Amphibious. Adjective, derived from two Greek words, 
amphi, a fish, and bios, a beast. An animal supposed by our 
ignorant ancestors to be compounded of a fish and a beast ; 
which therefore, like the hippopotamus, can’t live on the 
land, and dies in the water.” 

However that may be, Tom was amphibious: and what is 
better still, he was clean. For the first time in his life, he 
felt how comfortable it was to have nothing on him but him- 
self. But he only enjoyed it : he did not know it, or think 


55 


The Water-Babies 


about it ; just as you enjoy life and health, and yet never think 
about being alive and healthy ; and may it be long before you 
have to think about it ! 

He did not remember having ever been dirty. Indeed, he 
did not remember any of his old troubles, being tired, or hun- 
gry, or beaten, or sent up dark chimneys. Since that sweet 
sleep, he had forgotten all about his master, and Harthover Place, 
and the little white girl, and in a word, all that had happened 
to him when he lived before; and what was best of all he 
had forgotten all the bad words which he had learned from 
Grimes, and the rude boys with whom he used to play. 

That is not strange: for you know, when you came into 
this world, and became a land-baby, you remembered nothing. 
So why should he, when he became a water-baby ? 

Then have you lived before ? 

My dear child, who can tell .? One can only tell that, by 
remembering something which happened where we lived be- 
fore ; and as we remember nothing, we know nothing about 
it ; and no book, and no man, can ever tell us certainly. 

There was a wise man once, a very wise man, and a very 
good man, who wrote a poem about the feelings which some 
children have about having lived before ; and this is what he 
^aid — 

“ Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting ; 

The soul that rises with us^ our life's star. 

Hath elsewhere had its setting. 

And comet h from afar : 

Not in entire forgetfulness. 

And not in utter nakedness. 

But trailing clouds of glory, do we come 
From God who is our homeF 
56 


The Water- Babies 


There, you can know no more than that. But if I was 
you, I would believe that. For then the great fairy Science, 
who is likely to be queen of all the fairies for many a year 
to come, can only do you good, and never do you harm ; 
and instead of fancying, with some people, that your body 
makes your soul, as if a steam-engine could make its own 
coke ; or, with some people, that your soul has nothing to 
do with your body, but is only stuck into it like a pin into 
a pin-cushion, to fall out with the first shake ; — you will 
believe the one true. 


orthodox. 

inductive. 

rational. 

deductive. 

philosophical. 

seductive. 

logical. 

productive. 

irrefragable. 

salutary. 

nominalistic. 

comfortable. 

realistic, 

and on-all-accounts-to-be-received 


doctrine of this wonderful fairy tale ; which is, that your 
soul makes your body, just as a snail makes his shell. For 
the rest, it is enough for us to be sure that whether or not 
we lived before, we shall live again ; though not, I hope, 
as poor little heathen Tom did. For he went downward 
into the water : but we, I hope, shall go upward to a very 
different place. 

But Tom was very happy in the water. He had been 
sadly overworked in the land-world ; and so now, to make 
up for that, he had nothing but holidays in the water-world 
for a long, long time to come. He had nothing to do now 
but enjoy himself, and look at all the pretty things which 


57 


The Water-Babies 


are to be seen in the cool clear water-world, where the sun 
is never too hot, and the frost is never too cold. 

And what did he live on ? Water-cresses, perhaps ; or 
perhaps water-gruel, and water-milk ; too many land-babies 
do so likewise. But we do not know what one-tenth of 
the water-things eat ; so we are not answerable for the 
water-babies. 

Sometimes he went along the smooth gravel water-ways, 
looking at the crickets which ran in and out among the 
stones, as rabbits do on land ; or he climbed over the ledges 
of rock, and saw the sand-pipers hanging in thousands, with 
every one of them a pretty little head and legs peeping out ; 
or he went into a still corner, and watched the caddises eat- 
ing dead sticks as greedily as you would eat plum-pudding, 
and building their houses with silk and glue. Very fanciful 
ladies they were ; none of them would keep to the same 
materials for a day. One would begin with some pebbles ; 
then she would stick on a piece of green wood ; then she 
found a shell, and stuck it on too ; and the poor shell was 
alive, and did not like at all being taken to build houses 
with : but the caddis did not let him have any voice in 
the matter, being rude and selfish, as vain people are apt to 
be ; then she stuck on a piece of rotten wood, then a 
very smart pink stone, and so on, till she was patched all 
over like an Irishman’s coat. Then she found a long straw, 
five times as long as herself, and said, “Hurrah ! my sister 
has a tail, and I ’ll have one too ; ” and she stuck it on her 
back, and marched about with it quite proud, though it was 
very inconvenient indeed. And, at that, tails became all the 
fashion among the caddis-baits in that pool, as they were 
at the end of the Long Pond last May, and they all toddled 

58 













The Water-Babies 


about with long straws sticking out behind, getting between 
each other’s legs, and tumbling over each other, and looking 
so ridiculous, that Tom laughed at them till he cried, as 
we did. But they were quite right, you know ; for people 
must always follow the fashion, even if it be spoon-bonnets. 

Then sometimes he came to a deep still reach ; and there 
he saw the water-forests. They would have looked to you 
only little weeds; but Tom, you must remember, was so 
little that everything looked a hundred times as big to him 
as it does to you, just as things do to a minnow, who sees 
and catches the little water-creatures which you can only 
see in a microscope. 

And in the water-forest he saw the water-monkeys and 
water-squirrels (they had all six legs, though ; everything 
almost has six legs in the water, except efts and water- 
babies) ; and nimbly enough they ran among the branches. 
There were water-flowers there too, in thousands ; and Tom 
tried to pick them : but as soon as he touched them, they 
drew themselves in and turned into knots of jelly ; and then 
Tom saw that they were all alive — bells, and stars, and 
wheels, and flowers, of all beautiful shapes and colours; and 
all alive and busy, just as Tom was. So now he found that 
there was a great deal more in the world than he had fancied 
at first sight. 

There was one wonderful little fellow, too, who peeped out 
of the top of a house built of round bricks. He had two 
big wheels, and one little one, all over teeth, spinning round 
and round like the wheels in a thrashing-machine ; and 
Tom stood and stared at him, to see what he was going to 
make with his machinery. And what do you think he was 
doing } Brick-making. With his two big wheels he swept 


59 


The Water-Babies 


together all the mud which floated in the water : all that 
was nice in it he put into his stomach and ate ; and all the 
mud he put into the little wheel on his breast, which really 
was a round hole set with teeth ; and there he spun it into 
a neat hard round brick ; and then he took it and stuck it 
on the top of his house-wall, and set to work to make 
another. Now was not he a clever little fellow? 

Tom thought so: but when he wanted to talk to him the 
brick-maker was much too busy and proud of his work to 
take notice of him. 

Now you must know that all the things under the water 
talk ; only not such a language as ours ; but such as horses, 
and dogs, and cows, and birds talk to each other ; and Tom 
soon learned to understand them and talk to them ; so that he 
might have had very pleasant company if he had only been a 
good boy. But I am sorry to say, he was too like some other 
little boys, very fond of hunting and tormenting creatures for 
mere sport. Some people say that boys cannot help it ; that 
it is nature, and only a proof that we are all originally descended 
from beasts of prey. But whether it is nature or not, little 
boys can help it, and must help it. For if they have naughty, 
low, mischievous tricks in their nature, as monkeys have, that 
is no reason why they should give way to those tricks like 
monkeys, who know no better. And therefore they must not 
torment dumb creatures; for if they do, a certain old lady 
who is coming will surely give them exactly what they 
deserve. But Tom did not know that ; and he pecked and 
howked the poor water-things about sadly, till they were all 
afraid of him, and got out of his way, or crept into their 
shells; so he had no one to speak to or play with. 

The water-fairies, of course, were very sorry to see him so 


6o 


The Water-Babies 


unhappy, and longed to take him, and tell him how naughty 
he was, and teach him to be good, and to play and romp with 
him too: but they had been forbidden to do that. Tom had 
to learn his lesson for himself by sound and sharp experience, 
as many another foolish person has to do, though there may 
be many a kind heart yearning over them all the while, and 
longing to teach them what they can only teach themselves. 

At last one day he found a caddis, and wanted it to peep 
out of its house : but its house-door was shut. He had never 
seen a caddis with a house-door before : so what must he do, 
the meddlesome little fellow, but pull it open, to see what 
the poor lady was doing inside. What a shame ! How 
should you like to have any one breaking your bedroom-door 
in, to see how you looked when you were in bed? So Tom 
broke to pieces the door, which was the prettiest little grating 
of silk, stuck all over with shining bits of crystal ; and when 
he looked in, the caddis poked out her head, and it had 
turned into just the shape of a bird’s. But when Tom spoke 
to her she could not answer ; for her mouth and face were 
tight tied up in a new night-cap of neat pink skin. How- 
ever, if she did n’t answer, all the other caddises did ; for they 
held up their hands and shrieked like the cats in Struwelpeter : 
“ Oh, you nasty horrid boy ; there you are at it again / And she 
had just laid herself up for a fortnight's sleep, and then she would 
have come out with such beautiful wings, and flown about, and 
laid such lots of eggs : and now you have broken her door, and she 
can t mend it because her mouth is tied up for a fortnight, and she 
will die. Who sent you here to worry us out of our lives ? ” 

So Tom swam away. He was very much ashamed of 
himself, and felt all the naughtier ; as little boys do when 
they have done wrong and won’t say so. 

6i 


The Water-Babies 


Then he came to a pool full of little trout, and began tor- 
menting them, and trying to catch them : but they slipped 
through his fingers, and jumped clean out of water in their 
fright. But as Tom chased them, he came close to a great 
dark hover under an alder root, and out floushed a huge old 
brown trout ten times as big as he was, and ran right against 
him, and knocked all the breath out of his body ; and I don’t 
know which was the more frightened of the two. 

Then he went on sulky and lonely, as he deserved to be ; 
and under a bank he saw a very ugly dirty creature sitting, 
about half as big as himself ; which had six legs, and a big 
stomach, and a most ridiculous head with two great eyes and 
a face just like a donkey’s. 

“Oh,” said Tom, “you are an ugly fellow to be sure!” and 
he began making faces at him ; and put his nose close to him, 
and halloed at him, like a very rude boy. 

When, hey presto ; all the thing’s donkey-face came off in 
a moment, and out popped a long arm with a pair of pincers 
at the end of it, and caught Tom by the nose. It did not 
hurt him much; but it held him quite tight. 

“ Yah, ah ! Oh, let me go 1 ” cried Tom. 

“Then let me go,” said the creature. “I want to be 
quiet. I want to split.” 

Tom promised to let him alone, and he let go. “ Why do 
you want to split ?” said Tom. 

“Because my brothers and sisters have all split, and turned 
into beautiful creatures with wings ; and I want to split 
too. Don’t speak to me. I am sure I shall split. I will 
split ! ” 

Tom stood still, and watched him. And he swelled him- 
self, and puffed, and stretched himself out stiff, and at last — 


62 


The Water- Babies 

crack, puff, bang — he opened all down his back, and then 
up to the top of his head. 

And out of his inside came the most slender, elegant, soft 
creature, as soft and smooth as Tom : but very pale and weak, 
like a little child who has been ill a long time in a dark room. 
It moved its legs very feebly ; and looked about it half ashamed, 
like a girl when she goes for the first time into a ballroom ; 
and then it began walking slowly up a grass stem to the top 
of the water. 

Tom was so astonished that he never said a word: but he 
stared with all his eyes. And he went up to the top of the 
water too, and peeped out to see what would happen. 

And as the creature sat in the warm bright sun, a wonder- 
ful change came over it. It grew strong and firm ; the most 
lovely colours began to show on its body, blue and yellow and 
black, spots and bars and rings ; out of its back rose four 
great wings of bright brown gauze ; and its eyes grew so 
large that they filled all its head, and shone like ten thousand 
diamonds. 

“ Oh, you beautiful creature ! ” said Tom ; and he put out 
his hand to catch it. 

But the thing whirred up into the air, and hung poised on 
its wings a moment, and then settled down again by Tom 
quite fearless. 

“ No! ” it said, “you cannot catch me. I am a dragon-fly 
now, the king of all the flies ; and I shall dance in the sunshine, 
and hawk over the river, and catch gnats, and have a beauti- 
ful wife like myself. I know what I shall do. Hurrah I ” 
And he flew away into the air, and began catching gnats. 

“Oh 1 come back, come back,” cried Tom, “you beautiful 
creature. I have no one to play with, and I am so lorjely 

63 


The Water-Babies 


here. If you will but come back I will never try to catch 
you.” 

“ I don’t care whether you do or not,” said the dragon-fly; 
“ for you can’t. But when I have had my dinner, and looked 
a little about this pretty place, I will come back, and have a 
little chat about all I have seen in my travels. Why, what a 
huge tree this is ! and what huge leaves on it ! ” 

It was only a big dock : but you know the dragon-fly had 
never seen any but little water-trees ; starwort, and milfoil, and 
water-crowfoot, and such like ; so it did look very big to him. 
Besides, he was very short-sighted, as all dragon-flies are ; and 
never could see a yard before his nose ; any more than a great 
many other folks, who are not half as handsome as he. 

The dragon-fly did come back, and chatted away with 
Tom. He was a little conceited about his fine colours and 
his large wings ; but you know, he had been a poor dirty 
ugly creature all his life before ; so there were great excuses 
for him. He was very fond of talking about all the wonder- 
ful things he saw in the trees and the meadows; and Tom 
liked to listen to him, for he had forgotten all about them. 
So in a little while they became great friends. 

And I am very glad to say, that Tom learned such a lesson 
that day, that he did not torment creatures for a long time 
after. And then the caddises grew quite tame, and used to 
tell him strange stories about the way they built their houses, 
and changed their skins, and turned at last into winged flies ; 
till Tom began to long to change his skin, and have wings 
like them some day. 

And the trout and he made it up (for trout very soon for- 
get if they have been frightened and hurt). So Tom used to 
play with them at hare and hounds, and great fun they had ; 

64 


The Water-Babies 


and he used to try and leap out of the water, head over heels, 
as they did before a shower came on : but somehow he never 
could manage it. He liked most, though, to see them rising 
at the flies, as they sailed round and round under the shadow 
of the great oak, where the beetles fell flop into the water, 
and the green caterpillars let themselves down from the boughs 
by silk ropes for no reason at all ; and then changed their 
foolish minds for no reason at all either ; and hauled them- 
selves up again into the tree, rolling up the rope in a ball be- 
tween their paws ; which is a very clever rope dancer’s trick, 
and neither Blondin nor Leotard could do it : but why they 
should take so much trouble about it no one can tell ; for they 
cannot get their living, as Blondin and Leotard do, by trying 
to break their necks on a string. 

And very often Tom caught them just as they touched the 
water ; and caught the alder-flies, and the caperers, and the 
cock-tailed duns and spinners, yellow, and brown, and claret, 
and gray, and gave them to his friends the trout. Perhaps he 
was not quite kind to the flies ; but one must do a good turn 
to one’s friends when one can. 

And at last he gave up catching even the flies ; for he made 
acquaintance with one by accident and found him a very 
merry little fellow. And this was the way it happened ; 
and it is all quite true. 

He was basking at the top of the water one hot day in 
July, catching duns and feeding the trout, when he saw a new 
sort, a dark gray little fellow with a brown head. He was a 
very little fellow indeed : but he made the most of himself, 
as people ought to do. He cocked up his head, and he 
cocked up his wings, and he cocked up his tail, and 
he cocked up the two whisks at his tail-end, and, in short, 
. 65 


The Water-Babies 


he looked the cockiest little man of all little men. And so 
he proved to be ; for instead of getting away, he hopped upon 
Tom’s finger, and sat there as bold as nine tailors ; and he 
cried out in the tiniest, shrillest, squeakiest little voice you ever 
heard, 

“Much obliged to you, indeed; but I don’t want it yet.'’ 

“ Want what ? ” said Tom, quite taken aback by his im- 
pudence. 

“Your leg, which you are kind enough to hold out for me 
to sit on. I must just go and see after my wife for a few min- 
utes. Dear me ! what a troublesome business a family is ! ” 
(though the idle little rogue did nothing at all, but left his 
poor wife to lay all the eggs by herself). “When I come back, 
I shall be glad of it, if you ’ll be so good as to keep it sticking 
out just so; ” and off he flew. 

Tom thought him a very cool sort of personage ; and still 
more so, when, in five minutes he came back, and said — “Ah, 
you were tired waiting.? Well, your other leg will do as 
w'ell.” 

And he popped himself down on Tom’s knee, and began 
chatting away in his squeaking voice. 

“So you live under the water.? It’s a low place. I lived 
there for some time ; and was very shabby and dirty. But I 
didn’t choose that that should last. So I turned respectable, 
and came up to the top, and put on this gray suit. It ’s a 
very business-like suit, you think, don’t you ? ” 

“ Very neat and quiet indeed,” said Tom. 

“ Yes, one must be quiet and neat and respectable, and 
all that sort of thing for a little, when one becomes a 
family man. But I ’m tired of it, that ’s the truth. I ’ve 
done quite enough business, I consider, in the last week, to 

66 


The Water-Babies 


last me my life. So I shall put on a ball dress, and go out 
and be a smart man, and see the gay world, and have a 
dance or two. Why should n’t one be jolly if one can 

“ And what will become of your wife ? ” 

“ Oh ! she is a very plain stupid creature, and that ’s the 
truth ; and thinks about nothing but eggs. If she chooses 
to come, why she may ; and if not, why I go without her ; 
— and here I go.” 

And, as he spoke, he turned quite pale, and then quite 
white. 

“ Why, you’re ill ! ” said Tom. But he did not answer. 

“You ’re dead,” said Tom, looking at him as he stood on 
his knee as white as a ghost. 

“ No, I ain’t ! ” answered a little squeaking voice over his 
head. “ This is me up here, in my ball-dress ; and that ’s 
my skin. Ha, ha ! you could not do such a trick as 
that ! ” 

And no more Tom could, nor Houdin, nor Robin, nor 
Frikell, nor all the conjurors in the world. For the little 
rogue had jumped clean out of his own skin, and left it 
standing on Tom’s knee, eyes, wings, legs, tail, exactly as 
if it had been alive. 

“ Ha, ha ! ” he said, and he jerked and skipped up and 
down, never stopping an instant, just as if he had St. Vitus’s 
dance. “Ain’t I a pretty fellow now?” 

And so he was ; for his body was white, and his tail 
orange, and his eyes all the colours of a peacock’s tail. And 
what was the oddest of all, the whisks at the end of his 
tail had grown five times as long as they were before. 

“ Ah ! ” said he, “ now I will see the gay world. My 
living won’t cost me much, for I have no mouth, you see, 

67 


The Water-Babies 


and no inside ; so I can never be hungry nor have the 
stomach-ache neither.” 

No more he had. He had grown as dry and hard and 
empty as a quill, as such silly shallow-hearted fellows deserve 
to grow. 

But, instead of being ashamed of his emptiness, he was 
quite proud of it, as a good many fine gentlemen are, and 
began flirting and flipping up and down, and singing — 

** My wife shall dance ^ and I shall singy 
So merrily pass the day ; 

For I hold it for quite the wisest thingy 
T^o drive dull care away'' 

And he danced up and down for three days and three 
nights, till he grew so tired, that he tumbled into the water, 
and floated down. But what became of him Tom never 
knew, and he himself never minded; for Tom heard him 
singing to the last, as he floated down — 

“To drive dull care away-ay-ay ! " 

And if he did not care, why nobody else cared either. 

But one day Tom had a new adventure. He was sitting 
on a water-lily leaf, he and his friend the dragon-fly, watch- 
ing the gnats dance. The dragon-fly had eaten as many 
as he wanted, and was sitting quite still and sleepy, for it 
was very hot and bright. The gnats (who did not care the 
least for their poor brothers’ death) danced a foot over his 
head quite happily, and a large black fly settled within an 
inch of his nose, and began washing his own face and comb- 
ing his hair with his paws : but the dragon-fly never stirred, 
and kept on chatting to Tom about the times when he lived 
under the water. 


68 


The Water-Babies 


Suddenly, Tom heard the strangest noise up the stream ; 
cooing, and grunting, and whining, and squeaking, as if you 
had put into a bag two stock-doves, nine mice, three guinea- 
pigs, and a blind puppy, and left them there to settle them- 
selves and make music. 

He looked up the water, and there he saw a sight as 
strange as the noise ; a great ball rolling over and over down 
the stream, seeming one moment of soft brown fur, and the 
next of shining glass : and yet it was not a ball ; for some- 
times it broke up and streamed away in pieces, and then 
it joined again ; and all the while the noise came out of it 
louder and louder. 

Tom asked the dragon-fly what it could be : but, of course, 
with his short sight, he could not even see it, though it 
was not ten yards away. So he took the neatest little header 
into the water, and started off to see for himself ; and, when 
he came near, the ball turned out to be four or five beauti- 
ful creatures, many times larger than Tom, who were swim- 
ming about, and rolling, and diving, and twisting, and wrest- 
ling, and cuddling, and kissing, and biting, and scratching, 
in the most charming fashion that ever was seen. And if 
you don’t believe me, you may go to the Zoological Gardens 
(for I am afraid that you won’t see it nearer, unless, per- 
haps, you get up at five in the morning, and go down to 
Corderey’s Moor, and watch by the great withy pollard 
which hangs over the backwater, where the otters breed 
sometimes), and then say, if otters at play in the water are 
not the merriest, lithest, gracefullest creatures you ever 
saw. 

But, when the biggest of them saw Tom, she darted out 
from the rest, and cried in the water-language sharply 

69 


The Water-Babies 


enough, “ Quick, children, here is something to eat, indeed ! ” 
and came at poor Tom, showing such a wicked pair of eyes, 
and such a set of sharp teeth in a grinning mouth, that 
Tom, who had thought her very handsome, said to himself. 
Handsome is that handsome does, and slipped in between the 
water-lily roots as fast as he could, and then turned round 
and made faces at her. 

“ Come out,” said the wicked old otter, “ or it will be 
worse for you.” 

But Tom looked at her from between two thick roots, and 
shook them with all his might, making horrible faces all the 
while, just as he used to grin through the railings at the old 
women, when he lived before. It was not quite well bred, 
no doubt; but you know, Tom had not finished his education 
yet. 

“ Come, away, children,” said the otter in disgust, ‘‘ it is 
not worth eating, after all. It is only a nasty eft, which 
nothing eats, not even those vulgar pike in the pond.” 

‘‘ I am not an eft ! ” said Tom ; “ efts have tails.” 

“You are an eft,” said the otter, very positively; “I see 
your two hands quite plain, and I know you have a tail.” 

“I tell you I have not,” said Tom. “Look here!” and 
he turned his pretty little self quite round ; and, sure enough, 
he had no more tail than you. 

The otter might have got out of it by saying that Tom was 
a frog : but, like a great many other people, when she had 
once said a thing, she stood to it, right or wrong ; so she 
answered : 

“ I say you are an eft, and therefore you are, and not fit 
food for gentlefolk like me and my children. You may stay 
there till the salmon eat you” (she knew the salmon would not. 


70 


The Water-Babies 


but she wanted to frighten poor Tom). “Ha! ha! they will 
eat you, and we will eat them ; ” and the otter laughed such 
a wicked, cruel laugh — as you may hear them do sometimes ; 
and the first time that you hear it you will probably think 
it is bogies. 

“What are salmon asked Tom. 

“Fish, you eft, great fish, nice fish to eat. They are the 
lords of the fish, and we are lords of the salmon and she 
laughed again. “We hunt them up and down the pools, and 
drive them up into a corner, the silly things; they are so 
proud, and bully the little trout, and the minnows, till they 
see us coming, and then they are so meek all at once ; and 
we catch them, but we disdain to eat them all ; we just bite 
out their soft throats and suck their sweet juice — Oh, so 
good!’" — (and she licked her wicked lips) — “and then 
throw them away, and go and catch another. They are 
coming soon, children, coming soon ; I can smell the rain 
coming up off the sea, and then hurrah for a fresh, and salmon, 
and plenty of eating all day long.” 

And the otter grew so proud that she turned head over 
heels twice, and then stood upright half out of the water, 
grinning like a Cheshire cat. 

“ And where do they come from ? ” asked Tom, who kept 
himself very close, for he was considerably frightened. 

“ Out of the sea, eft, the great wide sea, where they might 
stay and be safe if they liked. But out of the sea the silly 
things come, into the great river down below, and we come 
up to watch for them ; and when they go down again we go 
down and follow them. And there we fish for the bass and 
the pollock, and have jolly days along the shore, and toss and 
roll in the breakers, and sleep snug in the warm dry crags. 

71 


The Water-Babies 


Ah, that is a merry life too, children, if it were not for those 
horrid men.” 

What are men? ” asked Tom ; but somehow he seemed 
to know before he asked. 

“ Two-legged things, eft : and, now I come to look at you, 
they are actually something like you, if you had not a tail ” 
(she was determined that Tom should have a tail), ‘‘ only a 
great deal bigger, worse luck for us, and they catch the fish 
with hooks and lines, which get into our feet sometimes, and 
set pots along the rocks to catch lobsters. They speared my 
poor dear husband as he went out to find something for me to 
eat. I was laid up among the crags then, and we were very 
low in the world, for the sea was so rough that no fish would 
come in shore. But they speared him, poor fellow, and I 
saw them carrying him away upon a pole. Ah, he lost his 
life for your sakes, my children, poor dear obedient creature 
that he was.” 

And the otter grew so sentimental (for otters can be very 
sentimental when they choose, like a good many people who 
are both cruel and greedy, and no good to anybody at all) 
that she sailed solemnly away down the burn, and Tom saw 
her no more for that time. And lucky it was for her that 
she did so ; for no sooner was she gone, than down the bank 
came seven little rough terrier dogs, snuffing and yapping, 
and grubbing and splashing, in full cry after the otter. Tom 
hid among the water-lilies till they were gone ; for he could 
not guess that they were the water-fairies come to help him. 

But he could not help thinking of what the otter had said 
about the great river and the broad sea. And, as he thought, 
he longed to go and see them. He could not tell why ; but 
the more he thought, the more he grew discontented with 


72 


The Water-Babies 


the narrow little stream in which he lived, and all his com- 
panions there ; and wanted to get out into the wide wide 
world, and enjoy all the wonderful sights of which he was 
sure it was full. 

And once he set off to go down the stream. But the 
stream was very low ; and when he came to the shallows 
he could not keep under water, for there was no water left to 
keep under. So the sun burned his back and made him sick ; 
and he went back again and lay quiet in the pool for a whole 
week more. 

And then, on the evening of a very hot day, he saw a 
sight. 

He had been very stupid all day, and so had the trout ; for 
they would not move an inch to take a fly, though there 
were thousands on the water, but lay dozing at the bottom 
under the shade of the stones; and Tom lay dozing too, and 
was glad to cuddle their smooth cool sides, for the water was 
quite warm and unpleasant. 

But toward evening it grew suddenly dark, and Tom 
looked up and saw a blanket of black clouds lying right 
across the valley above his head, resting on the crags right 
and left. He felt not quite frightened, but very still ; for 
everything was still. There was not a whisper of wind, nor 
a chirp of a bird to be heard ; and next a few great drops of 
rain fell plop into the water, and one hit Tom on the nose, 
and made him pop his head down quickly enough. 

And then the thunder roared, and the lightning flashed, 
and leapt across Vendale and back again, from cloud to cloud, 
and cliff to cliff, till the very rocks in the stream seemed to 
shake : and Tom looked up at it through the water, and 
thought it the finest thing he ever saw in his life. 


73 


The Water-Babies 


But out of the water he dared not put his head ; for the 
rain came down by bucketsful, and the hail hammered like 
shot on the stream, and churned it into foam ; and soon the 
stream rose, and rushed down, higher and higher, and fouler 
and fouler, full of beetles, and sticks ; and straws, and worms, 
and addle-eggs, and wood-lice, and leeches, and odds and 
ends, and omnium-gatherums, and this, that, and the other, 
enough to fill nine museums. 

Tom could hardly stand against the stream, and hid behind 
a rock. But the trout did not ; for out they rushed from 
among the stones, and began gobbling the beetles and leeches 
in the most greedy and quarrelsome way, and swimming about 
with great worms hanging out of their mouths, tugging and 
kicking to get them away from each other. 

And now, by the flashes of the lightning, Tom saw a new 
sight — all the bottom of the stream alive with great eels, 
turning and twisting along, all down stream and away. They 
had been hiding for weeks past in the cracks of the rocks, and 
in burrows in the mud; and Tom had hardly ever seen them, 
except now and then at night : but now they were all out, 
and went hurrying past him so fiercely and wildly that he was 
quite frightened. And as they hurried past he could hear them 
say to each other, “We must run, we must run. What a 
jolly thunderstorm ! Down to the sea, down to the sea! ” 
And then the otter came by with all her brood, twining 
and sweeping along as fast as the eels themselves ; and she 
spied Tom as she came by, and said : 

“Now is your time, eft, if you want to see the world. 
Come along, children, never mind those nasty eels : we shall 
breakfast on salmon to-morrow. Down to the sea, down to 
the sea I ” 


74 


The Water-Babies 


Then came a flash brighter than all the rest, and by the 
light of it — in the thousandth part of a second they were 
gone again — but he had seen them, he was certain of it — 
Three beautiful little white girls, with their arms twined 
round each other’s necks, floating down the torrent, as they 
sang, “ Down to the sea, down to the sea ! ” 

“ Oh, stay! Wait for me 1 ” cried Tom ; but they were 
gone : yet he could hear their voices clear and sweet through 
the roar of thunder and water and wind, singing as they died 
away, “ Down to the sea ! ” 

“ Down to the sea ? ” said Tom ; “ everything is going to 
the sea, and I will go too. Good-bye, trout.” But the trout 
were so busy gobbling worms that they never turned to an- 
swer him ; so that Tom was spared the pain of bidding them 
farewell. 

And now, down the rushing stream, guided by the bright 
flashes of the storm ; past tall birch-fringed rocks, which 
shone out one moment as clear as day, and the next were 
dark as night ; past dark hovers under swirling banks, from 
which great trout rushed out on Tom, thinking him to be 
good to eat, and turned back sulkily, for the fairies sent them 
home again with a tremendous scolding, for daring to meddle 
with a water-baby ; on through narrow strids and roaring 
cataracts, where Tom was deafened and blinded for a mo- 
ment by the rushing waters ; along deep reaches, where the 
white water-lilies tossed and flapped beneath the wind and 
hail ; past sleeping villages ; under dark bridge-arches, and 
away and away to the sea. And Tom could not stop, 
and did not care to stop ; he would see the great world 
below, and the salmon, and the breakers, and the wide 
wide sea. 


75 


The Water-Babies 


And when the daylight came, Tom found himself out in 
the salmon river. 

And what sort of a river was it ? Was it like an Irish 
stream, winding through the brown bogs, where the wild ducks 
squatter up from among the white water-lilies, and the cur- 
lews flit to and fro, crying “ Tullie-wheep, mind your 
sheep ; and Dennis tells you strange stories of the Peishta- 
more, the great bogy-snake which lies in the black peat pools, 
among the old pine-stems, and puts his head out at night to 
snap at the cattle as they come down to drink ? — But you 
must not believe all that Dennis tells you, mind ; for if you 
ask him : 

“ Is there a salmon here, do you think, Dennis ? ” 

“ Is it salmon, thin, your honour manes ? Salmon ? Cart- 
loads it is of thim, thin, an’ ridgmens, shouldthering ache 
other out of water, av’ ye’d but the luck to see thim.” 

Then you fish the pool all over, and never get a rise. 

“ But there can’t be a salmon here, Dennis ! and, if you ’ll 
but think, if one had come up last tide, he ’d be gone to the 
higher pools by now.” 

“ Shure thin, and your honour ’s the thrue fisherman, and 
understands it all like a book. Why, ye spake as if ye ’d 
known the wather a thousand years ! As I said, how could 
there be a fish here at all, just now ? ” 

“ But you said just now they were shouldering each other 
out of water } ” 

And then Dennis will look up at you with his handsome, 
sly, soft, sleepy, good-natured, untrustable, Irish gray eye, 
and answer with the prettiest smile : 

“ Shure, and did n’t I think your honour would like a 
pleasant answer ? ” 


76 


The Water-Babies 


So you must not trust Dennis, because he is in the habit 
of giving pleasant answers ; but, instead of being angry with 
him, you must remember that he is a poor Paddy, and knows 
no better ; so you must just burst out laughing ; and then he 
will burst out laughing too, and slave for you, and trot 
about after you, and show you good sport if he can — for 
he is an affectionate fellow, and as fond of sport as you 
are — and if he can’t, tell you fibs instead, a hundred 
an hour ; and wonder all the while why poor ould Ireland 
does not prosper like England and Scotland, and some 
other places, where folk have taken up a ridiculous fancy 
that honesty is the best policy. 

Or was it like a Welsh salmon river, which is remarkable 
chiefly (at least, till this last year) for containing no salmon, 
as they have been all poached out by the enlightened peas- 
antry, to prevent the Cythrawl Sassenach (which means you, 
my little dear, your kith and kin, and signifies much the same 
as the Chinese Fan ^et) from coming bothering into Wales, 
with good tackle, and ready money, and civilisation, and 
common honesty, and other like things of which the Cymry 
stand in no need whatsoever ? 

Or was it such a salmon stream as I trust you will see 
among the Hampshire water-meadows before your hairs are 
gray, under the wise new fishing-laws ? — when Winchester 
apprentices shall covenant, as they did three hundred years 
ago, not to be made to eat salmon more than three days a 
week ; and fresh-run fish shall be as plentiful under Salisbury 
spire as they are in Holly-hole at Christchurch ; in the good 
time coming, when folks shall see that, of all Heaven’s gifts 
of food, the one to be protected most carefully is that worthy 
gentleman salmon, who is generous enough to go down to 


77 


The Water-Babies 


the sea weighing five ounces, and to come back next year 
weighing five pounds, without having cost the soil or the 
state one farthing ? 

Or was it like a Scotch stream, such as Arthur Clough 
drew in his “ Bothie ” : — 

“ Where over a ledge of granite 
Into a granite bason the amber torrent descended. .... 
Beautiful there for the colour derived from green rocks under ; 
Beautiful most of all, where beads of foam uprising 
Mingle their clouds of white with the delicate hue of the 
stillness. . . . 

Cliff over cliff for its sides, with rowan and pendant birch 
boughs.'' . . . 

Ah, my little man, when you are a big man, and fish such 
a stream as that, you will hardly care, I think, whether she be 
roaring down in full spate, like coffee covered with scald 
cream, while the fish are swirling at your fly as an oar-blade 
swirls in a boat-race, or flashing up the cataract like silver 
arrows, out of the fiercest of the foam ; or whether the fall 
be dwindled to a single thread, and the shingle below be as 
white and dusty as a turnpike road, while the salmon huddle 
together in one dark cloud in the clear amber pool, sleeping 
away their time till the rain creeps back again off the sea. 
You will not care much, if you have eyes and brains ; for 
you will lay down your rod contentedly, and drink in at your 
eyes the beauty of that glorious place ; and listen to the 
water-ouzel piping on the stones, and watch the yellow roes 
come down to drink, and look at you with their great soft 
trustful eyes, as much as to say, “You could not have the 
heart to shoot at us ? ” And then, if you have sense, you will 

78 


/ 


The Water-Babies 


turn and talk to the great giant of a gilly who lies basking 
on the stone beside you. He will tell you no fibs, my little 
man ; for he is a Scotchman, and fears God, and not the 
priest ; and, as you talk to him, you will be surprised more 
and more at his knowledge, his sense, his humour, his 
courtesy ; and you will find out — unless you have found 
it out before — that a man may learn from his Bible to 
be a more thorough gentleman than if he had been brought 
up in all the drawing-rooms in London. 

No. It was none of these, the salmon stream at Harth- 
over. It was such a stream as you see in dear old Bewick ; 
Bewick, who was born and bred upon them. A full hun- 
dred yards broad it was, sliding on from broad pool to broad 
shallow, and broad shallow to broad pool, over great fields of 
shingle, under oak and ash coverts, past low cliffs of sand- 
stone, past green meadows, and fair parks, and a great house 
of gray stone, and brown moors above, and here and there 
against the sky the smoking chimney of a colliery. You 
must look at Bewick to see just what it was like, for he has 
drawn it a hundred times with the care and the love of a true 
north countryman ; and, even if you do not care about the 
salmon river, you ought, like all good boys, to know your 
Bewick. 

At least, so old Sir John used to say, and very sensibly he 
put it too, as he was wont to do : 

“ If they want to describe a finished young gentleman in 
France, I hear, they say of him, ‘ II suit son Rabelais' But 
if I want to describe one in England, I say, ‘ He knows his 
Bewick.' And I think that is the higher compliment.” 

But Tom thought nothing about what the river was like. 
All his fancy was, to get down to the wide wide sea. 


79 


The Water-Babies 


And after a while he came to a place where the river 
spread out into broad still shallow reaches, so wide that 
little Tom, as he put his head out of the water, could 
hardly see across. 

And there he stopped. He got a little frightened. “ This 
must be the sea,” he thought. “ What a wide place it is ! 
If I go on into it I shall surely lose my way, or some strange 
thing will bite me. I will stop here and look out for the 
otter, or the eels, or some one to tell me where I shall go.” 

So he went back a little way, and crept into a crack of the 
rock, just where the river opened out into the wide shallows, 
and watched for some one to tell him his way : but the otter 
and the eels were gone on miles and miles down the stream. 

There he waited, and slept too, for he was quite tired with 
his night’s journey ; and, when he woke, the stream was 
clearing to a beautiful amber hue, though it was still very 
high. And after a while he saw a sight which made 
him jump up ; for he knew in a moment it was one of the 
things which he had come to look for. 

Such a fish ! ten times as big as the biggest trout, and 
a hundred times as big as Tom, sculling up the stream 
past him, as easily as Tom had sculled down. 

Such a fish ! shining silver from head to tail, and here 
and there a crimson dot ; with a grand hooked nose and 
grand curling lip, and a grand bright eye, looking round him 
as proudly as a king, and surveying the water right and 
left as if all belonged to him. Surely he must be the 
salmon, the king of all the fish. 

Tom was so frightened that he longed to creep into a 
hole ; but he need not have been ; for salmon are all true 
gentlemen, and, like true gentlemen, they look noble and 


8o 


The Water-Babies 


proud enough, and yet, like true gentlemen, they never harm 
or quarrel with any one, but go about their own business, and 
leave rude fellows to themselves. 

The salmon looked at him full in the face, and then 
went on without minding him, with a swish or two 
of his tail which made the stream boil again. And in a 
few minutes came another, and then four or five, and 
so on ; and all passed Tom, rushing and plunging up 
the cataract with strong strokes of their silver tails, now 
and then leaping clean out of water and up over a rock, 
shining gloriously for a moment in the bright sun ; while 
Tom was so delighted that he could have watched them 
all day long. 

And at last one came up bigger than all the rest ; but 
he came slowly, and stopped, and looked back, and seemed 
very anxious and busy. And Tom saw that he was help- 
ing another salmon, an especially handsome one, who had 
not a single spot upon it, but was clothed in pure silver 
from nose to tail. 

“ My dear,’* said the great fish to his companion, “ you 
really look dreadfully tired, and you must not over-exert 
yourself at first. Do rest yourself behind this rock ; ** and 
he shoved her gently, with his nose, to the rock where 
Tom sat. 

You must know that this was the salmon’s wife. For 
salmon, like other true gentlemen, always choose their lady, 
and love her, and are true to her, and take care of her 
and work for her, and fight for her, as every true gentle- 
man ought ; and are not like vulgar chub and roach and 
pike, who have no high feelings, and take no care of 
their wives. 


b 


8i 


The Water- Babies 


Then he saw Tom, and looked at him very fiercely one 
moment as if he was going to bite him. 

“ What do you want here ? ” he said, very fiercely. 

“ Oh, don’t hurt me ! ” cried Tom. “ I only want 
to look at you ; you are so handsome.” 

“ Ah ? ” said the salmon, very stately but very civilly. 
“ I really beg your pardon ; I see what you are, my little 
dear. I have met one or two creatures like you before, 
and found them very agreeable and well-behaved. Indeed, 
one of them showed me a great kindness lately, which 
I hope to be able to repay. I hope we shall not be 

in your way here. As soon as this lady is rested, we 

shall proceed on our journey.” 

What a well-bred old salmon he was ! 

‘‘ So you have seen things like me before ? ” asked Tom. 

“ Several times, my dear. Indeed, it was only last night 
that one at the river’s mouth came and warned me and 

my wife of some new stake-nets which had got into the 

stream, I cannot tell how, since last winter, and showed 
us the way round them, in the most charmingly obliging 
way.” 

“ So there are babies in the sea cried Tom, and clapped 
his little hands. “ Then I shall have some one to play with 
there ? How delightful ! ” 

“ Were there no babies up this stream ? ” asked the lady 
salmon. 

“ No ! and I grew so lonely. I thought I saw three last 
night ; but they were gone in an instant, down to the sea. 
So I went too ; for I had nothing to play with but caddises 
and dragon-flies and trout.” 

“ Ugh ! ” cried the lady, “ what low company 1 ” 

82 


The Water- Babies 


My dear, if he has been in low company, he has 
certainly not learnt their low manners,” said the salmon. 

“ No, indeed, poor little dear : but how sad for him 
to live among such people as caddises, who have actually 
six legs, the nasty things ; and dragon-flies, too ! why, 
they are not even good to eat ; for I tried them once, 
they are all hard and empty ; and, as for trout, every one 
knows what they are.” Whereon she curled up her 
lip, and looked dreadfully scornful, while her husband 
curled up his too, till he looked as proud as Alcibiades. 

“ Why do you dislike the trout so ? ” asked Tom. 

“ My dear, we do not even mention them, if we can help 
it ; for I am sorry to say they are relations of ours who 
do us no credit. A great many years ago they were just like 
us : but they were so lazy, and cowardly, and greedy, that 
instead of going down to the sea every year to see the 
world and grow strong and fat, they chose to stay and 
poke about in the little streams and eat worms and grubs ; 
and they are very properly punished for it ; for they have 
grown ugly and brown and spotted and small ; and are 
actually so degraded in their tastes, that they will eat our 
children.” 

“ And then they pretend to scrape acquaintance with us 
again,” said the lady. “ Why, I have actually known one 
of them propose to a lady salmon, the impudent little 
creature.” 

“ I should hope,” said the gentleman, “ that there are 
very few ladies of our race who would degrade themselves 
by listening to such a creature for an instant. If I saw such 
a thing happen, I should consider it my duty to put them 
both to death upon the spot.” So the old salmon said, 

83 


The Water-Babies 


like an old blue-blooded hidalgo of Spain ; and what is 
more, he would have done it too. For you must know, 
no enemies are so bitter against each other as those who 
are of the same race ; and a salmon looks on a trout, as 
some great folks look on some little folks, as something 
just too much like himself to be tolerated. 


84 


Chapter IV. 

“ Siueet is the lore which Nature brings ; 

Our meddling intellect 

Misshapes the beauteous forms of things 

We murder to dissect. 

Enough of science and of art : 

Close up these barren leaves', 

Come forth., and bring with you a heart 
That watches and receives.'' 

IVordsivorth. 

S O the salmon went up, after Tom had warned them 
of the wicked old otter ; and Tom went down, but 
slowly and cautiously, coasting along the shore. He 
was many days about it, for it was many miles down 
to the sea ; and perhaps he would never have found his way, 
if the fairies had not guided him, without his seeing their 
fair faces, or feeling their gentle hands. 

85 


The Water-Babies 


And, as he went, he had a very strange adventure. It 
was a clear still September night, and the moon shone so 
brightly down through the water, that he could not sleep, 
though he shut his eyes as tight as possible. So at last he 
came up to the top, and sat upon a little point of rock, 
and looked up at the broad yellow moon, and wondered 
what she was, and thought that she looked at him. And 
he watched the moonlight on the rippling river, and the 
black heads of the firs, and the silver-frosted lawns, and 
listened to the owl’s hoot, and the snipe’s bleat, and the 
fox’s bark, and the otter’s laugh ; and smelt the soft per- 
fume of the birches, and the wafts of heather honey off the 
grouse moor far above ; and felt very happy, though he could 
not well tell why. You, of course, would have been very 
cold sitting there on a September night, without the least bit 
of clothes on your wet back ; but Tom was a water-baby, 
and therefore felt cold no more than a fish. 

Suddenly, he saw a beautiful sight. A bright red light 
moved along the river-side, and threw down into the water 
a long tap-root of flame. Tom, curious little rogue that 
he was, must needs go and see what it was ; so he swam to 
the shore, and met the light as it stopped over a shallow 
run at the edge of a low rock. 

And there, underneath the light, lay five or six great 
salmon, looking up at the flame with their great goggle 
eyes, and wagging their tails, as if they were very much 
pleased at it. 

Tom came to the top, to look at this wonderful light 
nearer, and made a splash. 

And he heard a voice say : 

“ There was a fish rose.” 


86 


The Water-Babies 


He did not know what the words meant : but he seemed 
to know the sound of them, and to know the voice which 
spoke them ; and he saw on the bank three great two-legged 
creatures, one of whom held the light, flaring and sputter- 
ing, and another a long pole. And he knew that they 
were men, and was frightened, and crept into a hole in 
the rock, from which he could see what went on. 

The man with the torch bent down over the water, and 
looked earnestly in ; and then he said : 

“ Tak’ that muckle fellow, lad ; he ’s ower fifteen punds ; 
and baud your hand steady.” 

Tom felt that there was some danger coming, and longed 
to warn the foolish salmon, who kept staring up at the light 
as if he was bewitched. But before he could make up his 
mind, down came the pole through the water ; there was a 
fearful splash and struggle, and Tom saw that the poor sal- 
mon was speared right through, and was lifted out of the 
water. 

And then from behind, there sprang on these three men 
three other men ; and there were shouts, and blows, and 
words which Tom recollected to have heard before ; and he 
shuddered and turned sick at them now, for he felt somehow 
that they were strange, and ugly, and wrong, and horrible. 
And it all began to come back to him. They were men ; 
and they were fighting ; savage, desperate, up-and-down 
fighting, such as Tom had seen too many times before. 

And he stopped his little ears, and longed to swim away ; 
and was very glad that he was a water-baby, and had nothing 
to do any more with horrid dirty men, with foul clothes on 
their backs, and foul words on their lips ; but he dared not 
stir out of his hole : while the rock shook over his head 


87 


The Water-Babies 


with the trampling and struggling of the keepers and the 
poachers. 

All of a sudden there was a tremendous splash, and a 
frightful flash, and a hissing, and all was still. 

For into the water, close to Tom, fell one of the men ; he 
who held the light in his hand. Into the swift river he 
sank, and rolled over and over in the current. Tom heard 
the men above run along, seemingly looking for him ; 
but he drifted down into the deep hole below, and there 
lay quite still, and they could not find him. 

Tom waited a long time, till all was quiet ; and then he 
peeped out, and saw the man lying. At last he screwed 
up his courage and swam down to him. “ Perhaps,” he 
thought, “ the water has made him fall asleep, as it did 
me.” 

Then he went nearer. He grew more and more curious, 
he could not tell why. He must go and look at him. 
He would go very quietly, of course ; so he swam round 
and round him, closer and closer ; and, as he did not 
stir, at last he came quite close and looked him in the 
face. 

The moon shone so bright that Tom could see every 
feature ; and, as he saw, he recollected, bit by bit, it 
was his old master. Grimes. 

Tom turned tail, and swam away as fast as he could. 

‘‘ Oh, dear me ! ” he thought, “ now he will turn into a 
water-baby. What a nasty troublesome one he will be I 
And perhaps he will find me out, and beat me again.” 

So he went up the river again a little way, and lay 
there the rest of the night under an alder root ; but when 
morning came, he longed to go down again to the big 

88 


The Water-Babies 

pool, and see whether Mr. Grimes had turned into a water- 
baby yet. 

So he went very carefully, peeping round all the rocks, 
and hiding under all the roots. Mr. Grimes lay there 
still ; he had not turned into a water-baby. In the after- 
noon Tom went back again. He could not rest till he 
had found out what had become of Mr. Grimes. But 
this time Mr. Grimes was gone ; and Tom made up 
his mind that he was turned into a water-baby. 

He might hav^" made himself easy, poor little man ; Mr. 
Grimes did not turn into a water-baby, or anything like one 
at all. But he did not make himself easy ; and a long time 
he was fearful lest he should meet Grimes suddenly in some 
deep pool. He could not know that the fairies had carried 
him away, and put him, where they put everything which 
falls into the water, exactly where it ought to be. But, do 
you know, what had happened to Mr. Grimes had such an 
effect on him that he never poached salmon any more. 
And it is quite certain that, when a man becomes a con- 
firmed poacher, the only way to cure him is to put him 
under water for twenty-four hours, like Grimes. So when 
you grow to be a big man, do you behave as all honest 
fellows should ; and never touch a fish or a head of 
game which belongs to another man without his express 
leave ; and then people will call you a gentleman, and 
treat you like one ; and perhaps give you good sport : 
instead of hitting you into the river, or calling you a 
poaching snob. 

Then Tom went on down, for he was afraid of staying near 
Grimes : and as he went, all the vale looked sad. The red 
and yellow leaves showered down into the river ; the flies and 

89 


The Water-Babies 


beetles were all dead and gone ; the chill autumn fog lay low 
upon the hills, and sometimes spread itself so thickly on the 
river that he could not see his way. But he felt his way in- 
stead, following the flow of the stream, day after day, past 
great bridges, past boats and barges, past the great town, with 
its wharfs, and mills, and tall smoking chimneys, and ships 
which rode at anchor in the stream ; and now and then 
he ran against their hawsers, and wondered what they 
were, and peeped out, and saw the sailors lounging on 
board smoking their pipes ; and ducked under again, for 
he was terribly afraid of being caught by man and turned 
into a chimney-sweep once more. He did not know that 
the fairies were close to him always, shutting the sailors’ eyes 
lest they should see him, and turning him aside from mill- 
races, and sewer-mouths, and all foul and dangerous things. 
Poor little fellow, it was a dreary journey for him ; and more 
than once he longed to be back in Vendale, playing with 
the trout in the bright summer sun. But it could not 
be. What has been once can never come over again. And 
people can be little babies, even water-babies, only once 
in their lives. 

Besides, people who make up their minds to go and see 
the world, as Tom did, must needs find it a weary journey. 
Lucky for them if they do not lose heart and stop half- 
way, instead of going on bravely to the end as Tom did. 
For then they will remain neither boys nor men, neither 
fish, flesh, nor good red-herring : having learnt a great 
deal too much, and yet not enough ; and sown their wild 
oats without having the advantage of reaping them. 

But Tom was always a brave, determined, little English 
bull-dog, who never knew when he was beaten ; and on 


90 


The Water-Babies 


and on he held, till he saw a long way off the red buoy 
through the fog. And then he found to his surprise, the 
stream turned round, and running up inland. 

It was the tide, of course : but Tom knew nothing of the 
tide. He only knew that in a minute more the water, 
which had been fresh, turned salt all round him. And 
then there came a change over him. He felt as strong, 
and light, and fresh, as if his veins had run champagne ; 
and gave, he did not know why, three skips out of the 
water, a yard high, and head over heels, just as the salmon 
do when they first touch the noble rich salt water, which, as 
some wise men tell us, is the mother of all living things. 

He did not care now for the tide being against him. The 

red buoy was in sight, dancing in the open sea ; and to the 

buoy he would go, and to it he went. He passed great 

shoals of bass and mullet, leaping and rushing in after 

the shrimps, but he never heeded them, or they him ; 
and once he passed a great black shining seal, who was 
coming in after the mullet. The seal put his head and 
shoulders out of water, and stared at him, looking exactly 
like a fat old greasy negro with a gray pate. And Tom, 
instead of being frightened, said, “ How d ’ye do, sir ; what 
a beautiful place the sea is ! ” And the old seal, instead 
of trying to bite him, looked at him with his soft sleepy 

winking eyes, and said, ‘‘ Good tide to you, my little man ; 

are you looking for your brothers and sisters ? I passed 
them all at play outside.” 

‘‘ Oh, then,” said Tom, “ I shall have playfellows at last,” 

and he swam on to the buoy, and got upon it (for he was 

quite out of breath) and sat there, and looked round for 
water-babies : but there were none to be seen. 

91 


The Water-Babies 

The sea-breeze came in freshly with the tide and blew the 
fog away : and the little waves danced for joy around 
the buoy, and the old buoy danced with them. The 
shadows of the clouds ran races over the bright blue bay, 
and yet never caught each other up ; and the breakers 
plunged merrily upon the wide white sands, and jumped 
up over the rocks, to see what the green fields inside were 
like, and tumbled down and broke themselves all to pieces, 
and never minded it a bit, but mended themselves and 
jumped up again. And the terns hovered over Tom like 
huge white dragon-flies with black heads, and the gulls 
laughed like girls at play, and the sea-pies, with their red 
bills and legs, flew to and fro from shore to shore, and 
whistled sweet and wild. And Tom looked and looked, 
and listened ; and he would have been very happy, if 
he could only have seen the water-babies. Then when 
the tide turned, he left the buoy, and swam round and 
round in search of them : but in vain. Sometimes he 
thought he heard them laughing : but it was only the 
laughter of the ripples. And sometimes he thought he 
saw them at the bottom : but it was only white and pink 
shells. And once he was sure he had found one, for 
he saw two bright eyes peeping out of the sand. So he 
dived down, and began scraping the sand away, and cried, 
“ Don’t hide ; I do want some one to play with so much ! ” 
And out jumped a great turbot with his ugly eyes and mouth 
all awry, and flopped away along the bottom, knocking 
poor Tom over. And he sat down at the bottom of the 
sea, and cried salt tears from sheer disappointment. 

To have come all this way, and faced so many dangers, 
and yet to find no water-babies ! How hard ! Well, it did 


92 


The Water-Babies 


seem hard : but people, even little babies, cannot have all 
they want without waiting for it, and working for it too, 
my little man, as you will find out some day. 

And Tom sat upon the buoy long days, long weeks, look- 
ing out to sea, and wondering when the water-babies would 
come back ; and yet they never came. 

Then he began to ask all the strange things which came 
in out of the sea, if they had seen any ; and some said 
“Yes,” and some said nothing at all. 

He asked the bass and the pollock ; but they were so 
greedy after the shrimps that they did not care to answer 
him a word. 

Then there came in a whole fleet of purple sea-snails, 
floating along, each on a sponge full of foam, and Tom 
said, “ Where do you come from, you pretty creatures ? 
and have you seen the water-babies ? ” 

And the sea-snails answered, “ Whence we come we know 
not ; and whither we are going, who can tell ? We float out 
our life in the mid-ocean, with the warm sunshine above our 
heads, and the warm gulf-stream below ; and that is enough 
for us. Yes ; perhaps we have seen the water-babies. We 
have seen many strange things as we sailed along.” And 
they floated away, the happy stupid things, and all went 
ashore upon the sands. 

Then there came in a great lazy sunfish, as big as a fat 
pig cut in half ; and he seemed to have been cut in half 
too, and squeezed in a clothes-press till he was flat ; but to 
all his big body and big fins he had only a little rabbit’s 
mouth, no bigger than Tom’s ; and, when Tom questioned 
him, he answered in a little squeaky feeble voice : 

“ I ’m sure I don’t know ; I ’ve lost my way. I meant 


93 


The Water- Babies 


to go to the Chesapeake, and I ’m afraid I Ve got wrong 
somehow. Dear me ! it was all by following that pleasant 
warm water. I ’m sure I Ve lost my way.” 

And, when Tom asked him again, he could only answer, 
“ I Ve lost my way. Don’t talk to me ; I want to think.” 

But, like a good many other people, the more he tried to 
think the less he could think ; and Tom saw him blundering 
about all day, till the coast-guardsmen saw his big fin above 
the water, and rowed out, and struck a boat-hook into him, 
and took him away. They took him up to the town 
and showed him for a penny a head, and made a good 
day’s work of it. But of course Tom did not know that. 

Then there came by a shoal of porpoises, rolling as they 
went — papas, and mammas, and little children — and all 
quite smooth and shiny, because the fairies French-polish 
them every morning ; and they sighed so softly as they 
came by, that Tom took courage to speak to them : but 
all they answered was, “ Hush, hush, hush ; ” for that 
was all they had learnt to say. 

And then there came a shoal of basking sharks, some 
of them as long as a boat, and Tom was frightened at them. 
But they were very lazy good-natured fellows, not greedy 
tyrants, like white sharks and blue sharks and ground sharks 
and hammer-heads, who eat men, or saw-fish and threshers 
and ice-sharks, who hunt the poor old whales. They came 
and rubbed their great sides against the buoy, and lay basking 
in the sun with their backfins out of water ; and winked 
at Tom : but he never could get them to speak. They had 
eaten so many herrings that they were quite stupid ; and 
Tom was glad when a collier brig came by and frightened 
them all away ; for they did smell most horribly, certainly. 


94 


The Water- Babies 

and he had to hold his nose tight as long as they were 
there. 

And then there came by a beautiful creature, like a 
ribbon of pure silver with a sharp head and very long 
teeth ; but it seemed very sick and sad. Sometimes it 
rolled helpless on its side ; and then it dashed away glit- 
tering like white fire ; and then it lay sick again and 
motionless. 

‘‘ Where do you come from ? ” asked Tom. “ And why 
are you so sick and sad ” 

‘‘ I come from the warm Carolinas, and the sandbanks 
fringed with pines ; where the great owl-rays leap and 
flap, like giant bats, upon the tide. But I wandered north 
and north, upon the treacherous warm gulf-stream, till I 
met with the cold icebergs, afloat in the mid ocean. So 
I got tangled among the icebergs, and chilled with their 
frozen breath. But the water-babies helped me from among 
them, and set me free again. And now I am mending every 
day ; but I am very sick and sad ; and perhaps I shall never 
get home again to play with the owl-rays any more.*’ 

“ Oh ! ” cried Tom. “ And you have seen water-babies? 
Have you seen any near here.?” 

‘‘ Yes ; they helped me again last night, or I should have 
been eaten by a great black porpoise.” 

How vexatious ! The water-babies close to him, and yet 
he could not find one. 

And then he left the buoy, and used to to go along 
the sands and round the rocks, and come out in the night — 
like the forsaken Merman in Mr. Arnold’s beautiful, beauti- 
ful poem, which you must learn by heart some day — and 
sit upon a point of rock, among the shining sea-weeds. 


95 


The Water-Babies 


in the low October tides, and cry and call for the water- 
babies ; but he never heard a voice call in return. And 
at last, with his fretting and crying, he grew quite lean and 
thin. 

But one day among the rocks he found a playfellow. It 
was not a water-baby, alas ! but it was a lobster ; and a 
distinguished lobster he was ; for he had live barnacles on 
his claws, which is a great mark of distinction in lobsterdom, 
and no more to be bought for money than a good conscience 
or the Victoria Cross. 

Tom had never seen a lobster before ; and he was mightily 
taken with this one ; for he thought him the most curious, 
odd, ridiculous creature he had ever seen ; and there he 
was not far wrong ; for all the ingenious men, and all 
the scientific men, and all the fanciful men, in the world, 
with all the old German bogy-painters into the bargain, 
could never invent, if all their wits were boiled into one, 
anything so curious, and so ridiculous, as a lobster. 

He had one claw knobbed and the other jagged ; and 
Tom delighted in watching him hold on to the seaweed 
with his knobbed claw, while he cut up salads with his 
jagged one, and then put them into his mouth, after smelling 
at them, like a monkey. And always the little barnacles 
threw out their casting-nets and swept the water, and came 
in for their share of whatever there was for dinner. 

But Tom was most astonished to see how he fired himself 
off — snap ! like the leap-frogs which you make out of a 
goose’s breast-bone. Certainly he took the most wonderful 
shots, and backwards, too. For, if he wanted to go into 
a narrow crack ten yards off, what do you think he did ? If 
he had gone in head foremost, of course he could not have 

96 


The Water-Babies 

turned round. So he used to turn his tail to it, and lay 
his long horns, which carry his sixth sense in their tips (and 
nobody knows what that sixth sense is), straight down his 
back to guide him, and twist his eyes back till they almost 
came out of their sockets, and then made ready, present, fire, 
snap ! — and away he went, pop into the hole ; and peeped 
out and twiddled his whiskers, as much as to say, “ You 
could n’t do that.” 

Tom asked him about water-babies. “ Yes,” he said. 
He had seen them often. But he did not think much 
of them. They were meddlesome little creatures, that 
went about helping fish and shells which got into scrapes. 
Well, for his part, he should be ashamed to be helped by 
little soft creatures that had not even a shell on their backs. 
He had lived quite long enough in the world to take care of 
himself. 

He was a conceited fellow, the old lobster, and not very 
civil to Tom ; and you will hear how he had to alter 
his mind before he was done, as conceited people generally 
have. But he was so funny, and Tom so lonely, that he 
could not quarrel with him ; and they used to sit in holes in 
the rocks, and chat for hours. 

And about this time there happened to Tom a very 
strange and important adventure — so important, indeed, 
that he was very near never finding the water-babies at all ; 
and I am sure you would have been sorry for that. 

I hope that you have not forgotten the little white lady 
all this while. At least, here she comes, looking like a clean 
white good little darling, as she always was, and always will 
be. For it befell in the pleasant short December days, when 
the wind always blows from the south-west, till Old Father 


7 


97 


The Water-Babies 


Christmas comes and spreads the great white table-cloth, 
ready for little boys and girls to give the birds their Christ- 
mas dinner of crumbs — it befell (to go on) in the pleasant 
December days, that Sir John was so busy hunting that no- 
body at home could get a word out of him. Four days a 
week he hunted, and very good sport he had ; and the other 
two he went to the bench and the board of guardians, and 
very good justice he did ; and, when he got home in time, 
he dined at five ; for he hated this absurd new fashion of 
dining at eight in the hunting season, which forces a man 
to make interest with the footman for cold beef and beer 
as soon as he comes in, and so spoil his appetite, and then 
sleep in an arm-chair in his bedroom, all stiff and tired, for 
two or three hours before he can get his dinner like a gentle- 
man. And do you be like Sir John, my dear little man, 
when you are your own master ; and, if you want either 
to read hard or ride hard, stick to the good old Cambridge 
hours, of breakfast at eight and dinner at five ; by which you 
may get two days’ work out of one. But, of course, if you 
find a fox at three in the afternoon and run him till dark, 
and leave off twenty miles from home, why you must wait 
for your dinner till you can get it, as better men than you 
have done. Only see that, if you go hungry, your horse 
does not ; but give him his warm gruel and beer, and 
take him gently home, remembering that good horses 
don’t grow on the hedge like blackberries. 

It befell (to go on a second time) that Sir John, hunting 
all day, and dining at five, fell asleep every evening, and 
snored so terribly that all the windows in Harthover shook, 
and the soot fell down the chimneys. Whereon My 
Lady, being no more able to get conversation out of him 

98 


The Water-Babies 


than a song out of a dead nightingale, determined to go 
off and leave him, and the doctor, and Captain Swinger 
the agent, to snore in concert every evening to their hearts’ 
content. So she started for the seaside with all the children, 
in order to put herself and them into condition by mild ap- 
plications of iodine. She might as well have stayed at home 
and used Parry’s liquid horse-blister, for there was plenty of 
it in the stables ; and then she would have saved her money, 
and saved the chance, also, of making all the children ill in- 
stead of well (as hundreds are made), by taking them to 
some nasty smelling undrained lodging, and then wondering 
how they caught scarlatina and diphtheria : but people won’t 
be wise enough to understand that till they are dead of bad 
smells, and then it will be too late ; besides, you see. Sir 
John did certainly snore very loud. 

But where she went to nobody must know, for fear 
young ladies should begin to fancy that there are water- 
babies there ! and so hunt and howk after them (besides 
raising the price of lodgings), and keep them in aquariums, 
as the ladies at Pompeii (as you may see by the paintings) 
used to keep Cupids in cages. But nobody ever heard 
that they starved the Cupids, or let them die of dirt and 
neglect, as English young ladies do by the poor sea-beasts. 
So nobody must know where My Lady went. Letting 
water-babies die is as bad as taking singing birds’ eggs ; 
for, though there are thousands, ay, millions, of both of 
them in the world, yet there is not one too many. 

Now it befell that, on the very shore, and over the very 
rocks, where Tom was sitting with his friend the lobster, there 
walked one day the little white lady, Elbe herself, and with 
her a very wise man indeed — Professor Ptthmllnsprts. 


UtTC. 


99 


The Water-Babies 


His mother was a Dutchwoman, and therefore he was born 
at Cura9ao (of course you have learnt your geography, and 
therefore know why) ; and his father a Pole, and therefore 
he was brought up at Petropaulowski (of course you have 
learnt your modern politics, and therefore know why) : 
but for all that he was as thorough an Englishman as 
ever coveted his neighbour’s goods. And his name, as 
I have said, was Professor Ptthmllnsprts, which is a very 
ancient and noble Polish name. 

He was, as I said, a very great naturalist, and chief pro- 
fessor of Necrobioneopalceonthydrochthonanthropopithekology in 
the new university which the king of the Cannibal Islands 
has founded ; and, being a member of the Acclimatisation 
Society, he had come here to collect all the nasty things 
which he could find on the coast of England, and turn 
them loose round the Cannibal Islands, because they had not 
nasty things enough there to eat what they left. 

But he was a very worthy kind good-natured little old 
gentleman; and very fond of children (for he was not the 
least a cannibal himself) ; and very good to all the world as 
long as it was good to him. Only one fault he had, which 
cock-robins have likewise, as you may see if you look out 
of the nursery window — that, when any one else found a 
curious worm, he would hop round them, and peck them, 
and set up his tail, and bristle up his feathers, just as a cock- 
robin would ; and declare that he found the worm first ; and 
that it was his worm ; and, if not, that then it was not a 
worm at all. 

He had met Sir John at Scarborough, or Fleetwood, or 
somewhere or other (if you don’t care where, nobody else 
does), and had made acquaintance with him, and become 


lOO 


The Water-Babies 


very fond of his children. No\v, Sir John knew nothing 
about sea-cockyolybirds, and cared less, provided the fish- 
monger sent him good fish for dinner ; and My Lady knew 
as little ; but she thought it proper that the children should 
know something. For in the stupid old times, you must 
understand, children were taught to know one thing, and 
to know it well ; but in these enlightened new times they 
are taught to know a little about everything, and to know 
it all ill; which is a great deal pleasanter and easier, and 
therefore quite right. 

So Elbe and he were walking on the rocks, and he was 
showing her about one in ten thousand of all the beautiful 
and curious things which are to be seen there. But little 
Elbe was not satisfied with them at all. She liked much 
better to play with live children, or even with dolls, which 
she could pretend were alive; and at last she said honestly, 
“ I don’t care about all these things, because they can’t play 
with me, or talk to me. If there were little children now 
in the water, as there used to be, and I could see them, I 
should like that.” 

“ Children in the water, you strange little duck ? ” said 
the professor. 

“Yes,” said Elbe. “I know there used to be children 
in the water, and mermaids too, and mermen. I saw them 
all in a picture at home, of a beautiful lady sailing in a car 
drawn by dolphins, and babies flying round her, and one 
sitting in her lap ; and the mermaids swimming and play- 
ing and the mermen trumpeting on conch-shells ; and it is 
called ‘ The Triumph of Galatea ; ’ and there is a burning 
mountain in the picture behind. It hangs on the great 
staircase, and I have looked at it ever since I was a baby. 


lOl 


The Water-Babies 


and dreamt about it a hundred times ; and it is so beautiful 
that it must be true.” 

But the professor had not the least notion of allowing 
that things were true, merely because people thought them 
beautiful. For at that rate, he said, the Baltas would be 
quite right in thinking it a fine thing to eat their grand- 
papas, because they thought it an ugly thing to put them 
underground. The professor, indeed, went further, and. held 
that no man was forced to believe anything to be true, but 
what he could see, hear, taste, or handle. 

He held very strange theories about a good many things. 
He had even got up once at the British Association, and 
declared that apes had hippopotamus majors in their brains 
just as men have. Which was a shocking thing to say ; 
for, if it were so, what would become of the faith, hope, 
and charity of immortal millions.? You may think that 
there are other more important differences between you and 
an ape, such as being able to speak, and make machines, 
and know right from wrong, and say your prayers, and other 
little matters of that kind ; but that is a child’s fancy, my 
dear. Nothing is to be depended on but the great hippopota- 
mus test. If you have a hippopotamus major in your brain, 
you are no ape, though you had four hands, no feet, and 
were more apish than the apes of all aperies. But if a 
hippopotamus major is ever discovered in one single ape’s 
brain, nothing will save your great-great-great-great-great- 
great-great-great-great-great-great-greater-greatest-grandmother 
from having been an ape too. No, my dear little man ; 
always remember that the one true, certain, final, and all- 
important difference between you and an ape is, that you 
have a hippopotamus major in your brain, and it has none ; 


102 


The Water-Babies 


and that, therefore, to discover one in its brain will be a 
very wrong and dangerous thing, at which every one will be 
very much shocked, as we may suppose they were at the 
professor. — Though really, after all, it don’t much matter; 
because — as Lord Dundreary and others would put it — 
nobody but men have hippopotamuses in their brains ; so, 
if a hippopotamus was discovered in an ape’s brain, why it 
would not be one, you know, but something else. 

But the professor had gone, I am sorry to say, even further 
than that ; for he had read at the British Association at Mel- 
bourne, Australia, in the year 1999, a paper which assured 
every one who found himself the better or wiser for the 
news, that there were not, never had been, and could not be, 
any rational or half-rational beings except men, anywhere, 
anywhen, or anyhow ; that nymphs, satyrs, fauns, inui, dwarfs, 
trolls, elves, gnomes, fairies, brownies, nixes, wilis, kobolds, 
leprechaunes, cluricaunes, banshees, will-o* -the-wisps, follets, 
lutins, magots, goblins, afrits, marids, ftnns, ghouls, peris, 
deevs, angels, archangels, imps, bogies, or worse, were nothing 
at all, and pure bosh and wind. And he had to get up very 
early in the morning to prove that, and to eat his breakfast 
overnight ; but he did it, at least to his own satisfaction. 
Whereon a certain great divine, and a very clever divine 
was he, called him a regular Sadducee ; and probably he 
was quite right. Whereon the professor, in return, called 
him a regular Pharisee ; and probably he was quite right 
too. But they did not quarrel in the least ; for, when men 
are men of the world, hard words run off them like water 
off a duck’s back. So the professor and the divine met 
at dinner that evening, and sat together on the sofa after- 
wards for an hour, and talked over the state of female 

103 


The Water-Babies 


labour on the antarctic continent (for nobody talks shop 
after his claret), and each vowed that the other was the best 
company he ever met in his life. What an advantage it is 
to be men of the world ! 

From all which you may guess that the professor was not 
the least of little Elbe’s opinion. So he gave her a succinct 
compendium of his famous paper at the British Associa- 
tion, in a form suited for the youthful mind. But, as we 
have gone over his arguments against water-babies once 
already, which is once too often, we will not repeat them 
here. 

Now little Elbe was, I suppose, a stupid little girl ; for, 
instead of being convinced by Professor Ptthmbnsprts’ argu- 
ments, she only asked the same question over again. 

“ But why are there not water-babies .? ” 

I trust and hope that it was because the professor trod at 
that moment on the edge of a very sharp mussel, and hurt 
one of his corns sadly, that he answered quite sharply, for- 
getting that he was a scientific man, and therefore ought to 
have known that he could n’t know ; and that he was a 
logician, and therefore ought to have known that he could 
not prove a universal negative — I say, I trust and hope it 
was because the mussel hurt his corn, that the professor an- 
swered quite sharply : 

“ Because there ain’t.” 

Which was not even good English, my dear little boy *, 
for, as you must know from Aunt Agitate’s Arguments, 
the professor ought to have said, if he was so angry as 
to say anything of the kind — Because there are not : or 
are none : or are none of them ; or (if he had been reading 
Aunt Agitate too) because they do not exist. 


104 


The Water-Babies 


And he groped with his net under the weeds so violently, 
that, as it befell, he caught poor little Tom. 

He felt the net very heavy ; and lifted it out quickly, 
with Tom all entangled in the meshes. 

“ Dear me ! ” he cried. “ What a large pink Holo- 
thurian ; with hands, too ! It must be connected with 
Synapta.” 

And he took him out. 

‘‘ It has actually eyes ! he cried. “ Why, it must be a 
Cephalopod ! This is most extraordinary ! ” 

“ No, I ain’t ! ” cried Tom, as loud as he could ; for he 
did not like to be called bad names. 

“ It is a water-baby ! ” cried Elbe ; and of course it 
was. 

“ Water-fiddlesticks, my dear ! ” said the professor ; and 
he turned away sharply. 

There was no denying it. It was a water-baby : and he 
had said a moment ago that there were none. What was he 
to do ? 

He would have liked, of course, to have taken Tom home 
in a bucket. He would not have put him in spirits. Of 
course not. He would have kept him alive, and petted him 
(for he was a very kind old gentleman), and written a book 
about him, and given him two long names, of which the 
first would have said a little about Tom, and the second all 
about himself ; for of course he would have called him 
Hydrotecnon Ptthmllnsprtsianum, or some other long name 
like that ; for they are forced to call everything by long 
names now, because they have used up all the short ones, 
ever since they took to making nine species out of one. But 
— what would all the learned men say to him after his 


The Water-Babies 


speech at the British Association? And what would Ellie 
say, after what he had just told her ? 

There was a wise old heathen once, who said, Maxima 
debetur pueris reverentia ” — The greatest reverence is due to 
children ; that is, that grown people should never say or do 
anything wrong before children, lest they should set them 
a bad example. — Cousin Cramchild says it means, “ The 
greatest respectfulness is expected from little boys.’" But he 
was raised in a country where little boys are not expected to 
be respectful, because all of them are as good as the Presi- 
dent : — Well, every one knows his own concerns best; so 
perhaps they are. But poor Cousin Cramchild, to do him 
justice, not being of that opinion, and having a moral mission, 
and being no scholar to speak of, and hard up for an authority 
— why, it was a very great temptation for him. But some 
people, and I am afraid the professor was one of them, inter- 
pret that in a more strange, curious, one-sided, left-handed, 
topsy-turvy, inside-out, behind-before fashion than even 
Cousin Cramchild ; for they make it mean, that you must 
show your respect for children, by never confessing yourself 
in the wrong to them, even if you know that you are so, lest 
they should lose confidence in their elders. 

Now, if the professor had said to Ellie, “Yes, my darling, 
it is a water-baby, and a very wonderful thing it is ; and it 
shows how little I know of the wonders of nature, in spite of 
forty years’ honest labour. I was just telling you that there 
could be no such creatures ; and, behold ! here is one come 
to confound my conceit and show me that Nature can do, 
and has done, beyond all that man’s poor fancy can imagine. 
So, let us thank the Maker, and Inspirer, and Lord of Nature 
for all His wonderful and glorious works, and try and find 

io6 


The Water- Babies 


out something about this one;” — I think that, if the pro- 
fessor had said that, little Ellie would have believed him 
more firmly, and respected him more deeply, and loved him 
better, than ever she had done before. But he was of a dif- 
ferent opinion. He hesitated a moment. He longed to keep 
Tom, and yet he half wished he never had caught him ; and 
at last he quite longed to get rid of him. So he turned away 
and poked Tom with his finger, for want of anything better 
to do ; and said carelessly, “ My dear little maid, you must have 
dreamt of water-babies last night, your head is so full of them.” 

Now Tom had been in the most horrible and unspeakable 
fright all the while ; and had kept as quiet as he could, 
though he was called a Holothurian and a Cephalopod ; for 
it was fixed in his little head that if a man with clothes on 
caught him, he might put clothes on him too, and make a 
dirty black chimney-sweep of him again. But, when the 
professor poked him, it was more than he could bear ; and, 
between fright and rage, he turned to bay as valiantly as a 
mouse in a corner, and bit the professor’s finger till it bled. 

** Oh ! ah ! yah ! ” cried he ; and glad of an excuse to be 
rid of Tom, dropped him on to the seaweed, and thence he 
dived into the water and was gone in a moment. 

“ But it was a water-baby, and I heard it speak ! ” cried 
Ellie. “Ah, it is gone!” And she jumped down off the 
rock to try and catch Tom before he slipped into the sea. 

Too late ! and what was worse, as she sprang down, she 
slipped, and fell some six feet with her head on a sharp rock, 
and lay quite still. 

The professor picked her up, and tried to waken her, and 
called to her, and cried over her, for he loved her very 
much : but she would not waken at all. So he took her up 

107 


The Water-Babies 

in his arms and carried her to her governess, and they all 
went home; and little Ellie was put to bed, and lay there 
quite still ; only now and then she woke up and called out 
about the water-baby : but no one knew what she meant, and 
the professor did not tell, for he was ashamed to tell. 

And, after a week, one moonlight night, the fairies came 
flying in at the window and brought her such a pretty pair of 
wings that she could not help putting them on ; and she flew 
with them out of the window, and over the land, and over 
the sea, and up through the clouds, and nobody heard or saw 
anything of her for a very long while. 

And this is why they say that no one has ever yet seen a 
water-baby. For my part, I believe that the naturalists get 
dozens of them when they are out dredging ; but they say 
nothing about them, and throw them overboard again, for 
fear of spoiling their theories. But, you see the professor 
was found out, as every one is in due time. A very terrible 
old fairy found the professor out ; she felt his bumps, and 
cast his nativity, and took the lunars of him carefully inside 
and out ; and so she knew what he would do as well as if she 
had seen it in a print book, as they say in the dear old west 
country; and he did it; and so he was found out beforehand, 
as everybody always is ; and the old fairy will find out the 
naturalists some day, and put them in the Times , and then on 
whose side will the laugh be ? 

So the old fairy took him in hand very severely there and 
then. But she says she is always most severe with the best 
people, because there is most chance of curing them, and 
therefore they are the patients who pay her best; for she has 
to work on the same salary as the Emperor of China’s physi- 
cians (it is a pity that all do not), no cure, no pay. 


The Water-Babies 


So she took the poor professor in hand : and because he 
was not content with things as they are, she filled his head 
with things as they are not, to try if he would like them 
better ; and because he did not choose to believe in a water- 
baby when he saw it, she made him believe in worse things 
than water-babies — in unicorns^ Jire-drakeSy manticoras, basi- 
lisks, amphisbanas, grijins, phoenixes, rocs, ores, dog-headed men, 
three-headed dogs, three-bodied geryons, and other pleasant 
creatures, which folks think never existed yet, and which 
folks hope never will exist, though they know nothing about 
the matter, and never will; and these creatures so upset, 
terrified, flustered, aggravated, confused, astonished, horrified, 
and totally flabbergasted the poor professor that the doctors 
said that he was out of his wits for three months ; and 
perhaps they were right, as they are now and then. 

So all the doctors in the county were called in to make a 
report on his case; and of course every one of them flatly 
contradicted the others : else what use is there in being men 
of science? But at last the majority agreed on a report in 
the true medical language, one half bad Latin, the other half 
worse Greek, and the rest what might have been English, if 
they had only learnt to write it. And this is the beginning 
thereof — 

T" he subanhypaposupernal anastomoses of perttomic diacellu- 
rite in the eneephalo digital region of the distinguished individual 
of whose symptomatic phenomena we had the melancholy honour 
{^subsequently to a preliminary diagnostic inspection') of making an 
inspectorial diagnosis, presenting the inter exclusively quadrilater al 
and antinomian diathesis known as Bump s ter haus en s blue folli- 
cles, we proceeded — 

But what they proceeded to do My Lady never knew ; for 


The Water-Babies 


she was so frightened at the long words that she ran for her 
life, and locked herself into her bedroom, for fear of being 
squashed by the words and strangled by the sentence. A boa 
constrictor, she said, was bad company enough : but what was 
a boa constrictor made of paving stones ? 

“ It was quite shocking ! What can they think is the 
matter with him ? ” said she to the old nurse. 

“ That his wit’s just addled ; may be wi’ unbelief and 
heathenry,” quoth she. 

“ Then why can’t they say so ?” 

And the heaven, and the sea, and the rocks, and the vales 
re-echoed — “Why indeed?” But the doctors never heard 
them. 

So she made Sir John write to the Times to command the 
Chancellor of the Exchequer for the time being to put a tax 
on long words ; — 

A light tax on words over three syllables, which are neces- 
sary evils, like rats : but, like them, must be kept down 
judiciously. 

A heavy tax on words over four syllables, as heterodoxy, 
spontaneity, spiritualism, spuriosity, etc. 

And on words over five syllables (of which I hope no one 
will wish to see any examples), a totally prohibitory tax. 

And a similar prohibitory tax on words derived from three 
or more languages at once; words derived from two lan- 
guages having become so common that there was no more 
hope of rooting out them than of rooting out peth-winds. 

The Chancellor of the Exchequer, being a scholar and a 
man of sense, jumped at the notion ; for he saw in it the one 
and only plan for abolishing Schedule D : but when he 
brought in his bill, most of the Irish members, and (I am 


The Water-Babies 


sorry to say) some of the Scotch likewise, opposed it most 
strongly, on the ground that in a free country no man was bound 
either to understand himself or to let others understand him. 
So the bill fell through on the first reading ; and the Chan- 
cellor, being a philosopher, comforted himself with the thought 
that it was not the first time that a woman had hit off a grand 
idea and the men turned up their stupid noses thereat. 

Now the doctors had it all their own way ; and to work 
they went in earnest, and they gave the poor professor divers 
and sundry medicines, as prescribed by the ancients and 
moderns, from Hippocrates to Feuchtersleben, as below, 
viz. — 

1. Hellebore^ to wit — 

Hellebore of Mta. 

Hellebore of Galatia. 

Hellebore of Sicily. 

And all other Hellebores, after the method of the 
Helleborising Helleborists of the Helleboric era. 
But that would not do. Bumpster hausen s blue fol- 
licles would not stir an inch out of his encephalo 
digital region. 

2. Trying to fnd out what was the matter with him, after 
the method of 

Hippocrates, 

Aretceus, 

Celsus, 

Ccelius Aurelianus, 

And Galen. 

But they found that a great deal too much trouble, as 
most people have since ; and so had recourse to — 


II 


The Water-Babies 


3. Borage. 

Cauteries. 

Boring a hole in his head to let out fumes, which (says 
Gordonius) “will, without doubt, do much good.” But it 
did n’t. 


Bezoar stone. 

Diamargaritum. 

A ram's brain boiled in spice. 

Oil of wormwood. 

Water of Nile. 

Capers. 

Good wine [but there was none to be got^ 
The water of a smith' s forge. 

Hops. 

Ambergris. 

Mandrake pillows. 

Dormouse fat. 

Hares' ears. 

Starvation. 

Camphor. 

Salts and senna. 

Musk. 

Opium. 

Strait-waistcoats . 

Bullyings. 

Bumpings 

Blisterings. 

Bleedings. 

Bucketings with cold water. 

Knoc kings down. 


The Water-Babies 


Kneeling on hts chest till they broke it in^ etc. etc. ; 
after the mediceval or monkish method: but that 
would not do. Bumpsterhausen' s blue follicles stuck 
there still. 

Then — 

4. Coaxing. 

Kissing. 

Champagne and turtle. 

Red herrings and soda water. 

Good advice. 

Gardening. 

Croquet. 

Musical soirees. 

Aunt Sally. 

Mild tobacco. 

The Saturday Review. 

A carriage with outriders, etc. etc. 

After the modern method. But that would not do. 

And if he had but been a convict lunatic, and had shot at 
the Queen, killed all his creditors to avoid paying them, or 
indulged in any other little amiable eccentricity of that kind, 
they would have given him in addition — 

The healthiest situation in England, on Easthampstead 
Plain. 

Free run of Windsor Forest. 

The Times every morning. 

A double-barrelled gun and pointers, and leave to shoot 
three Wellington College boys a week (not more) in case 
black game was scarce. 

But as he was neither mad enough nor bad enough to be 


The Water-Babies 

allowed such luxuries, they grew desperate, and fell into bad 
ways, viz. — 

5. Suffumigations of sulphur. 

Herrwiggius his “ Incomparable drink for madmen : ” 

Only they could not find out what it was. 

Suffumigation of the liver of the fish . . . 

Only they had forgotten its name, so Dr. Gray could not 
well procure them a specimen. 

Metallic tractors. 

Holloway's Ointment. 

Electro- bio logy. 

Valentine Greatrakes his Stroking Cure. 
Spirit-rapping. 

Holloway's Pills. 

Table-turning. 

Morison's Pills. 

Homoeopathy. 

Parr's Life Pills. 

Mesmerism. 

Pure Bosh. 

Exorcisms, for which they read Maleus Maleficarum, 
Nideri Formicarium, Delrio, Wierus, etc. 

But could not get one that mentioned water-babies. 
Hydropathy. 

Madame Rachel's Elixir of Youth. 

The Poughkeepsie Seer his Prophecies. 

The distilled liquor of addle eggs. 

Pyropathy. 


14 


The Water- Babies 


As successfully employed by the old inquisitors to cure the 
malady of thought, and now by the Persian Mollahs to cure 
that of rheumatism. 

Geopathy, or burying him. 

Atmopathy, or steaming him. 

Sympathy^ after the method of Basil Valentine his 
T^rtumph of Antimony, and Kenelm Digby his 
Weapon-salve, which some call a hair of the dog 
that bit him. 

Hermopathy, or pouring mercury down his throat to 
move the animal spirits. 

Meteoropathy, or going up to the moon to look for his 
lost wits, as Ruggiero did for Orlando Furiosd s : 
only having no hippogriff, they were forced to use a 
balloon; and, falling into the North Sea, were 
picked up by a Yarmouth herring-boat, and came 
home much the wiser, and all over scales. 

Antipathy, or using him like man and a brother.'' 

Apathy, or doing nothing at all. 

With all other ipathies and opathies which Noodle has 
invented, and Foodie tried, since black-fellows 
chipped flints at Abb'eville — which is a consider- 
able time ago, to judge by the Great Exhibition. 

But nothing would do ; for he screamed and cried all day 
for a water-baby, to come and drive away the monsters ; and 
of course they did not try to find one, because they did not 
believe in them, and were thinking of nothing but Bumpster- 
hausen’s blue follicles; having, as usual, set the cart before the 
horse, and taken the effect for the cause. 

So they were forced at last to let the poor professor ease 


115 


The Water-Babies 


his mind by writing a great book, exactly contrary to all his 
old opinions ; in which he proved that the moon was made 
of green cheese, and that all the mites in it (which you may 
see sometimes quite plain through a telescope, if you will only 
keep the lens dirty enough, as Mr. Weekes kept his voltaic 
battery) are nothing in the world but little babies, who are 
hatching and swarming up there in millions, ready to come 
down into this world whenever children want a new little 
brother or sister. 

Which must be a mistake, for this one reason : that, there 
being no atmosphere round the moon (though some one or 
other says there is, at least on the other side, and that he has 
been round at the back of it to see, and found that the moon 
was just the shape of a Bath bun, and so wet that the man in 
the moon went about on Midsummer-day in Macintoshes and 
Cording’s boots, spearing eels and sneezing) ; that, therefore, 
I say, there being no atmosphere, there can be no evapora- 
tion ; and therefore, the dew-point can never fall below 71-5° 
below zero of Fahrenheit: and, therefore, it cannot be cold 
enough there about four o’clock in the morning to condense 
the babies’ mesenteric apophthegm into their left ventricles ; 
and, therefore, they can never catch the hooping-cough ; 
and if they do not have hooping-cough, they cannot be 
babies at all ; and, therefore, there are no babies in the moon. 
— Q.E.D. 

Which may seem a roundabout reason ; and so, perhaps, it 
is : but you will have heard worse ones in your time, and 
from better men than you are. 

But one thing is certain ; that, when the good old doctor 
got his book written, he felt considerably relieved from 
Bumpsterhausen’s blue follicles, and a few things infinitely 

116 


The Water-Babies 


worse ; to wit, from pride and vain-glory, and from blindness 
and hardness of heart ; which are the true causes of Bumpster- 
hausen’s blue follicles, and of a good many other ugly things 
besides. Whereon the foul flood-water in his brains ran 
down, and cleared to a fine coffee colour, such as fish like to 
rise in, till very fine clean fresh-run fish did begin to rise in 
his brains ; and he caught two or three of them (which is 
exceedingly fine sport, for brain rivers), and anatomised them 
carefully, and never mentioned what he found out from them, 
except to little children ; and became ever after a sadder and 
a wiser man; which is a very good thing to become, my 
dear little boy, even though one has to pay a heavy price for 
the blessing. 


17 



Chapter V 

“ Stern Lawgiver ! yet thou dost wear 
The Godhead’s most benignant grace; 

Nor know we anything so fair 
As is the smile upon thy face : 

Flowers laugh before thee on their beds^ 

And fragrance in thy footing treads ; 

Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong ; 

And the most ancient heavens^ through Thee^ are fresh and strong.” 

WoRDSif'ORTH, Ode to Duty. 



UT what became of little Tom ? 

He slipped away off the rocks into the water, 
as I said before. But he could not help thinking 
of little Ellie. He did not remember who she 
was ; but he knew that she was a little girl, though she was 
a hundred times as big as he. That is not surprising : size 
has nothing to do with kindred. A tiny weed may be first 
cousin to a great tree ; and a little dog like Vick knows that 
Lioness is a dog too, though she is twenty times larger than 
herself. So Tom knew that Ellie was a little girl, and 
thought about her all that day, and longed to have had her 

ii8 



The Water-Babies 


to play with ; but he had very soon to think of something 
else. And here is the account of what happened to him, as 
it was published next morning in the Waterproof Gazette, 
on the finest watered paper, for the use of the great fairy, 
Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid, who reads the news very carefully 
every morning, and especially the police cases, as you will 
hear very soon. 

He was going along the rocks in three-fathom water, 
watching the pollock catch prawns, and the wrasses nibble 
barnacles off* the rocks, shells and all, when he saw a round 
cage of green withes ; and inside it, looking very much 
ashamed of himself, sat his friend the lobster, twiddling his 
horns, instead of thumbs. 

“ What, have you been naughty, and have they put you in 
the lock-up?” asked Tom. 

The lobster felt a little indignant at such a notion, but he 
was too much depressed in spirits to argue ; so he only said, 
“ I can’t get out.” 

“ Why did you get in ? ” 

‘‘ After that nasty piece of dead fish.” He had thought it 
looked and smelt very nice when he was outside, and so it 
did, for a lobster : but now he turned round and abused it 
because he was angry with himself. 

“ Where did you get in ? ” 

“ Through that round hole at the top.” 

“ Then why don’t you get out through it ? ” 

‘‘ Because I can’t : ” and the lobster twiddled his horns 
more fiercely than ever, but he was forced to confess. 

“ I have jumped upwards, downwards, backwards, and 
sideways, at least four thousand times ; and I can’t get out : 
I always get up underneath there, and can’t find the hole.” 


The Water-Babies 


Tom looked at the trap, and having more wit than the 
lobster, he saw plainly enough what was the matter ; as you 
may if you will look at a lobster-pot. 

“ Stop a bit,” said Tom. “ Turn your tail up to me, and 
I ’ll pull you through hindforemost, and then you won’t 
stick in the spikes.” 

But the lobster was so stupid and clumsy that he couldn’t 
hit the hole. Like a great many fox-hunters, he was very 
sharp as long as he was in his own country ; but as soon as 
they get out of it they lose their heads ; and so the lobster, 
so to speak, lost his tail. 

Tom reached and clawed down the hole after him, till he 
caught hold of him ; and then, as was to be expected, the 
clumsy lobster pulled him in head foremost. 

“Hullo! here is a pretty business,” said Tom. “Now 
take your great claws, and break the points off those spikes, 
and then we shall both get out easily.” 

“ Dear me, I never thought of that,” said the lobster ; 
“and after all the experience of life that I have had 1 ” 

You see, experience is of very little good unless a man, or 
a lobster, has wit enough to make use of it. For a good 
many people, like old Polonius, have seen all the world, 
and yet remain little better than children after all. 

But they had not got half the spikes away when they saw 
a great dark cloud over them : and lo, and behold, it was 
the otter. 

How she did grin and grin when she saw Tom. “ Yar 1 ” 
said she, “ you little meddlesome wretch, I have you now 1 
I will serve you out for telling the salmon where I was I ” 
And she crawled all over the pot to get in. 

Tom was horribly frightened, and still more frightened 


120 


The Water-Babies 


when she found the hole in the top, and squeezed herself 
right down through it, all eyes and teeth. But no sooner 
was her head inside than valiant Mr. Lobster caught her by 
the nose and held on. 

And there they were all three in the pot, rolling over and 
over, and very tight packing it was. And the lobster tore at 
the otter, and the otter tore at the lobster, and both squeezed 
and thumped poor Tom till he had no breath left in his body ; 
and I don’t know what would have happened to him if he 
had not at last got on the otter’s back, and safe out of the 
hole. 

He was right glad when he got out : but he would not 
desert his friend who had saved him; and the first time he 
saw his tail uppermost he caught hold of it, and pulled with 
all his might. 

But the lobster would not let go. 

‘‘Come along,” said Tom; “don’t you see she is dead?” 
And so she was, quite drowned and dead. 

And that was the end of the wicked otter. 

But the lobster would not let go. 

“ Come along, you stupid old stick-in-the-mud,” cried Tom, 
“ or the fisherman will catch you ! ” And that was true, for 
Tom felt some one above beginning to haul up the pot. 

But the lobster would not let go. 

Tom saw the fisherman haul him up to the boat-side, and 
thought it was all up with him. But when Mr. Lobster 
saw the fisherman, he gave such a furious and tremendous 
snap, that he snapped out of his hand, and out of the pot, 
and safe into the sea. But he left his knobbed claw behind 
him ; for it never came into his stupid head to let go after 
all, so he just shook his claw off as the easier method. It 


The Water-Babies 


was something of a bull, that; but you must know the 
lobster was an Irish lobster, and was hatched off Island 
Magee at the mouth of Belfast Lough. 

Tom asked the lobster why he never thought of letting 
go. He said very determinedly that it was a point of honour 
among lobsters. And so it is, as the Mayor of Plymouth 
found out once to his cost — eight or nine hundred years 
ago, of course ; for if it had happened lately it would be per- 
sonal to mention it. 

For one day he was so tired with sitting on a hard chair, 
in a grand furred gown, with a gold chain round his neck, 
hearing one policeman after another come in and sing. 
What shall we do with the drunken sailor, so early in 
the morning?” and answering them each exactly alike : 

“ Put him in the round house till he gets sober, so early 
in the morning ” — 

That, when it was over, he jumped up, and played leap- 
frog with the town-clerk till he burst his buttons, and then 
had his luncheon, and burst some more buttons, and then 
said : “ It is a low spring-tide ; I shall go out this afternoon 
and cut my capers.” 

Now he did not mean to cut such capers as you eat with 
boiled mutton. It was the commandant of artillery at Va- 
letta who used to amuse himself with cutting them, and who 
stuck upon one of the bastions a notice, “ No one allowed 
to cut capers here but me,” which greatly edified the mid- 
shipmen in port, and the Maltese on the Nix Mangiare 
stairs. But all that the mayor meant was that he would go 
and have an afternoon’s fun, like any schoolboy, and catch 
lobsters with an iron hook. 

So to the Mewstone he went, and for lobsters he looked. 


22 






The Water-Babies 


And when he came to a certain crack in the rocks he was so 
excited that, instead of putting in his hook, he put in his 
hand ; and Mr. Lobster was at home, and caught him by 
the finger, and held on. 

‘‘Yah!” said the mayor, and pulled as hard as he dared: 
but the more he pulled, the more the lobster pinched, till he 
was forced to be quiet. 

Then he tried to get his hook in with his other hand ; 
but the hole was too narrow. 

Then he pulled again ; but he could not stand the pain. 

Then he shouted and bawled for help : but there was no 
one nearer him than the men-of-war inside the breakwater. 

Then he began to turn a little pale ; for the tide flowed, 
and still the lobster held on. 

Then he turned quite white; for the tide was up to his 
knees, and still the lobster held on. 

Then he thought of cutting off his finger; but he wanted 
two things to do it with — courage and a knife ; and he had 
got neither. 

Then he turned quite yellow ; for the tide was up to his 
waist, and still the lobster held on. 

Then he thought over all the naughty things he ever had 
done ; all the sand which he had put in the sugar, and the 
sloe-leaves in the tea, and the water in the treacle, and the 
salt in the tobacco (because his brother was a brewer, and a 
man must help his own kin). 

Then he turned quite blue; for the tide was up to his 
breast, and still the lobster held on. 

Then, I have no doubt, he repented fully of all the said 
naughty things which he had done, and promised to mend 
his life, as too many do when they think they have no life 


123 


The Water-Babies 


left to mend. Whereby, as they fancy, they make a very 
cheap bargain. But the old fairy with the birch rod soon 
undeceives them. 

And then he grew all colours at once, and turned up his 
eyes like a duck in thunder ; for the water was up to his 
chin, and still the lobster held on. 

And then came a man-of-war’s boat round the Mewstone, 
and saw his head sticking up out of the water. One said it 
was a keg of brandy, and another that it was a cocoa-nut, 
and another that it was a buoy loose, and another that it was 
a black diver, and wanted to fire at it, which would not have 
been pleasant for the mayor : but just then such a yell came 
out of a great hole in the middle of it that the midshipman 
in charge guessed what it was, and bade pull up to it as fast 
as they could. So somehow or other the Jacktars got the 
lobster out, and set the mayor free, and put him ashore at the 
Barbican. He never went lobster-catching again ; and we 
will hope he put no more salt in the tobacco, not even to 
sell his brother’s beer. 

And that is the story of the Mayor of Plymouth, which 
has two advantages — first, that of being quite true ; and sec- 
ond, that of having (as folks say all good stories ought to have) 
no moral whatsoever : no more, indeed, has any part of this 
book, because it is a fairy tale, you know. 

And now happened to Tom a most wonderful thing ; for 
he had not left the lobster five minutes before he came upon 
a water-baby. 

A real live water-baby, sitting on the white sand, very busy 
about a little point of rock. And when it saw Tom it looked 
up for a moment, and then cried, “ Why, you are not one of 
us. You are a new baby ! Oh, how delightful !” 


124 


The Water-Babies 


And it ran to Tom, and Tom ran to it, and they hugged 
and kissed each other for ever so long, they did not know 
why. But they did not want any introductions there under 
the water. 

At last Tom said, “Oh, where have you been all this 
while I have been looking for you so long, and I have 
been so lonely.” 

“We have been here for days and days. There are hun- 
dreds of us about the rocks. How was it you did not see us, 
or hear us when we sing and romp every evening before we 
go home.?’* 

Tom looked at the baby again, and then he said: 

“ Well, this is wonderful ! I have seen things just like you 
again and again, but I thought you were shells, or sea-crea- 
tures. I never took you for water-babies like myself.” 

Now, was not that very odd? So odd, indeed, that you 
will, no doubt, want to know how it happened, and why 
Tom could never find a water-baby till after he had got the 
lobster out of the pot. And, if you will read this story nine 
times over, and then think for yourself, you will find out why. 
It is not good for little boys to be told everything, and never 
to be forced to use their own wits. They would learn, then, 
no more than they do at Dr. Dulcimer’s famous suburban 
establishment for the idler members of the youthful aristoc- 
racy, where the masters learn the lessons and the boys hear 
them — which saves a great deal of trouble — for the time 
being. 

“ Now,” said the baby, “ come and help me, or I shall not 
have finished before my brothers and sisters come, and it is 
time to go home.” 

“ What shall I help you at ? ” 


25 


The Water-Babies 


“ At this poor dear little rock ; a great clumsy boulder 
came rolling by in the last storm, and knocked all its head 
off, and rubbed off all its flowers. And now I must plant it 
again with seaweeds, and coralline, and anemones, and I will 
make it the prettiest little rock-garden on all the shore.” 

So they worked away at the rock, and planted it, and 
smoothed the sand down round it, and capital fun they had 
till the tide began to turn. And then Tom heard all the 
other babies coming, laughing and singing and shouting and 
romping ; and the noise they made was just like the noise of 
the ripple. So he knew that he had been hearing and seeing 
the water -babies all along; only he did not know them, 
because his eyes and ears were not opened. 

And in they came, dozens and dozens of them, some big- 
ger than Tom and some smaller, all in the neatest little white 
bathing dresses ; and when they found that he was a new 
baby, they hugged him and kissed him, and then put him in 
the middle and danced round him on the sand, and there was 
no one ever so happy as poor little Tom. 

“Now then,” they cried all at once, “ we must come away 
home, we must come away home, or the tide will leave us 
dry. We have mended all the broken seaweed, and put all 
the rock-pools in order, and planted all the shells again in the 
sand, and nobody will see where the ugly storm swept in last 
week.” 

And this is the reason why the rock-pools are always so 
neat and clean ; because the water-babies come inshore after 
every storm to sweep them out, and comb them down, and 
put them all to rights again. 

Only where men are wasteful and dirty, and let sewers run 
into the sea instead of putting the stuff upon the fields like 


26 


The Water-Babies 


thrifty reasonable souls ; or throw herrings’ heads and dead 
dog-fish, or any other refuse, into the water ; or in any way 
make a mess upon the clean shore — there the water-babies 
will not come, sometimes not for hundreds of years (for they 
cannot abide anything smelly or foul), but leave the sea- 
anemones and the crabs to clear away everything, till the 
good tidy sea has covered up all the dirt in soft mud and clean 
sand, where the water-babies can plant live cockles and whelks 
and razor-shells and sea-cucumbers and golden-combs, and 
make a pretty live garden again, after man’s dirt is cleared 
away. And that, I suppose, is the reason why there are no 
water-babies at any watering-place which I have ever seen. 

And where is the home of the water-babies ? In St. 
Brandan’s fairy isle. 

Did you never hear of the blessed St. Brandan, how he 
preached to the wild Irish on the wild, wild Kerry coast, he 
and five other hermits, till they were weary and longed to 
rest ? For the wild Irish would not listen to them, or come 
to confession and to mass, but liked better to brew potheen, 
and dance the pater o’pee, and knock each other over the 
head with shillelaghs, and shoot each other from behind turf- 
dykes, and steal each other’s cattle, and burn each other’s 
homes ; till St. Brandan and his friends were weary of them, 
for they would not learn to be peaceable Christians at all. 

So St. Brandan went out to the point of Old Dunmore, 
and looked over the tide-way roaring round the Blasquets, at 
the end of all the world, and away into the ocean, and sighed 
— “ Ah that I had wings as a dove ! ” And far away, before 
the setting sun, he saw a blue fairy sea, and golden fairy 
islands, and he said, “Those are the islands of the blest.” 
Then he and his friends got into a hooker, and sailed away 


27 


The Water-Babies 


and away to the westward, and were never heard of more. 
But the people who would not hear him were changed into 
gorillas, and gorillas they are until this day. 

And when St. Brandan and the hermits came to that fairy 
isle they found it overgrown with cedars and full of beautiful 
birds; and he sat down under the cedars and preached to all 
the birds in the air. And they liked his sermons so well that 
they told the fishes in the sea ; and they came, and St. Bran- 
dan preached to them ; and the fishes told the water-babies, 
who live in the caves under the isle ; and they came up by 
hundreds every Sunday, and St. Brandan got quite a neat little 
Sunday-school. And there he taught the water-babies for a 
great many hundred years, till his eyes grew too dim to see, 
and his beard grew so long that he dared not walk for fear 
of treading on it, and then he might have tumbled down. 
And at last he and the five hermits fell fast asleep under the 
cedar-shades, and there they sleep unto this day. But the 
fairies took to the water-babies, and taught them their lessons 
themselves. 

And some say that St. Brandan will awake and begin to 
teach the babies once more: but some think that he will 
sleep on, for better for worse, till the coming of the Cocqci- 
grues. But, on still clear summer evenings, when the sun 
sinks down into the sea, among golden cloud-capes and cloud- 
islands, and lochs and friths of azure sky, the sailors fancy 
that they see, away to westward, St. Brandan’s fairy isle. 

But whether men can see it or not, St. Brandan’s Isle once 
actually stood there; a great land out in the ocean, which 
has sunk and sunk beneath the waves. Old Plato called it 
Atlantis, and told strange tales of the wise men who lived 
therein, and of the wars they fought in the old times. And 


28 


The Water-Babies 


from off that island came strange flowers, which linger still 
about this land : — the Cornish heath, and Cornish money- 
wort, and the delicate Venus’s hair, and the London-pride 
which covers the Kerry mountains, and the little pink butter- 
wort of Devon, and the great blue butterwort of Ireland, and 
the Connemara heath, and the bristle-fern of the Turk water- 
fall, and many a strange plant more; all fairy tokens left for 
wise men and good children from off St. Brandan’s Isle. 

Now when Tom got there, he found that the isle stood all 
on pillars, and that its roots were full of caves. There were 
pillars of black basalt, like Staffa ; and pillars of green and 
crimson serpentine, like Kynance ; and pillars ribboned with 
red and white and yellow sandstone, like Livermead ; and 
there were blue grottoes like Capri, and white grottoes like 
Adelsberg ; all curtained and draped with seaweeds, purple 
and crimson, green and brown ; and strewn with soft white 
sand, on which the water-babies sleep every night. But, to 
keep the place clean and sweet, the crabs picked up all the 
scraps off the floor and ate them like so many monkeys; 
while the rocks were covered with ten thousand sea-anem- 
ones, and corals and madrepores, who scavenged the water 
all day long, and kept it nice and pure. But, to make up to 
them for having to do such nasty work, they were not left 
black and dirty, as poor chimney-sweeps and dustmen are. 
No ; the fairies are more considerate and just than that, and 
have dressed them all in the most beautiful colours and pat- 
terns, till they look like vast flower-beds of gay blossoms. If 
you think I am talking nonsense, I can only say that it is 
true ; and that an old gentleman named Fourier used to say 
that we ought to do the same by chimney-sweeps and dust- 
men, and honour them instead of despising them ; and he 


9 


29 


The Water-Babies 


was a very clever old gentleman : but, unfortunately for him 
and the world, as mad as a March hare. 

And, instead of watchmen and policemen to keep out nasty 
things at night, there were thousands and thousands of water- 
snakes, and most wonderful creatures they were. They were 
all named after the Nereids, the sea-fairies who took care of 
them, Eunice and Polynoe, Phyllodoce and Psamathe, and all 
the rest of the pretty darlings who swim round their Queen 
Amphitrite, and her car of cameo shell. They were dressed 
in green velvet, and black velvet, and purple velvet ; and were 
all joined in rings; and some of them had three hundred 
brains apiece, so that they must have been uncommonly 
shrewd detectives ; and some had eyes in their tails ; and 
some had eyes in every joint, so that they kept a very sharp 
look-out ; and when they wanted a baby-snake, they just 
grew one at the end of their own tails, and when it was able 
to take care of itself it dropped off ; so that they brought up 
their families very cheaply. But if any nasty thing came by, 
out they rushed upon it ; and then out of each of their hun- 
dreds of feet there sprang a whole cutler’s shop of 


Scythesy 

SahreSy 

Billhooksy 

Tataghansy 

PickaxeSy 

Creeses y 

Forksy 

Ghoorka swordsy 

PenkniveSy 

Tucks y 

yavelinSy 

Fishhooksy 

LanceSy 

BradawlSy 

HalbertSy 

GimbletSy 

Gisarinesy 

Corkscrews, 

PoleaxeSy 

Pins, 

Rapiers 

Needles, 


And so forth 

130 


The Water-Babies 


which stabbed, shot, poked, pricked, scratched, ripped, 
pinked, and crimped those naughty beasts so terribly that they 
had to run for their lives, or else be chopped into small pieces 
and be eaten afterwards. All, if that is not all, every word, 
true, then there is no faith in microscopes, and all is over 
with the Linnaean Society. 

And there were the water-babies in thousands, more than 
Tom, or you either, could count. — And the little children 
whom the good fairies take to, because their cruel mothers 
and fathers will not ; all who are untaught and brought up 
heathens, and all who come to grief by ill-usage or ignorance 
or neglect ; all the little children who are overlaid, or given 
gin when they are young, or are let to drink out of hot ket- 
tles, or to fall into the fire ; all the little children in alleys 
and courts, and tumble-down cottages, who die by fever, and 
cholera, and measles, and scarlatina, and nasty complaints 
which no one has any business to have, and which no one 
will have some day, when folks have common sense ; and all 
the little children who have been killed by cruel masters and 
wicked soldiers ; they were all there, except, of course, the 
babes of Bethlehem who were killed by wicked King Herod; 
for they were taken straight to heaven long ago, as everybody 
knows, and we call them the Holy Innocents. 

But I wish Tom had given up all his naughty tricks, and 
left off tormenting dumb animals now that he had plenty 
of playfellows to amuse him. Instead of that, I am sorry 
to say, he would meddle with the creatures, all but the 
water-snakes, for they would stand no nonsense. So he 
tickled the madrepores, to make them shut up ; and fright- 
ened the crabs, to make them hide in the sand and peep 
out at him with the tips of their eyes ; and put stones into 


The Water-Babies 


the anemones’ mouths, to make them fancy that their dinner 
was coming. 

The other children warned him, and said, “ Take care 
what you are at. Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid is coming.” But 
Tom never heeded them, being quite riotous with high spirits 
and good luck, till, one Friday morning early, Mrs. Bedoneby- 
asyoudid came indeed. 

A very tremendous lady she was ; and when the children 
saw her they all stood in a row, very upright indeed, and 
smoothed down their bathing dresses, and put their hands 
behind them, just as if they were going to be examined by 
the inspector. 

And she had on a black bonnet, and a black shawl, and no 
crinoline at all ; and a pair of large green spectacles, and a 
great hooked nose, hooked so much that the bridge of it 
stood quite up above her eyebrows; and under her arm she 
carried a great birch-rod. Indeed, she was so ugly that Tom 
was tempted to make faces at her; but did not; for he did 
not admire the look of the birch-rod under her arm. 

And she looked at the children one by one, and seemed 
very much pleased with them, though she never asked them 
one question about how they were behaving ; and then began 
giving them all sorts of nice sea-things — sea-cakes, sea-apples, 
sea-oranges, sea-bullseyes, sea-toffee ; and to the very best of 
all she gave sea-ices, made out of sea-cows* cream, which 
never melt under water. 

And, if you don’t quite believe me, then just think — 
What is more cheap and plentiful than sea-rock ? Then 
why should there not be sea-toffee as well } And every one 
can find sea-lemons (ready quartered too) if they will look for 
them at low tide ; and sea-grapes too sometimes, hanging in 


132 


The Water-Babies 


bunches ; and, if you will go to Nice, you will find the fish- 
market full of sea-fruit, which they call ** frutta di mare : ’’ 
though I suppose they call them “fruit de mer” now, out of 
compliment to that most successful, and therefore most im- 
maculate, potentate who is seemingly desirous of inheriting 
the blessing pronounced on those who remove their neigh- 
bours’ land-mark. And, perhaps, that is the very reason why 
the place is called Nice, because there are so many nice 
things in the sea there : at least, if it is not, it ought to be. 

Now little Tom watched all these sweet things given away, 
till his mouth watered, and his eyes grew as round as an owl’s. 
For he hoped that his turn would come at last ; and so it 
did. For the lady called him up, and held out her fingers 
with something in them, and popped it into his mouth ; and, 
lo and behold, it was a nasty cold hard pebble. 

“ You are a very cruel woman,” said he, and began to 
whimper. 

“ And you are a very cruel boy ; who puts pebbles into 
the sea-anemones’ mouths, to take them in, and make them 
fancy that they had caught a good dinner ! As you did to 
them, so I must do to you.” 

“ Who told you that ?” said Tom. 

“ You did yourself, this very minute.” 

Tom had never opened his lips ; so he was very much 
taken aback indeed. 

“Yes; every one tells me exactly what they have done 
wrong ; and that without knowing it themselves. So there 
is no use trying to hide anything from me. Now go, and be 
a good boy, and I will put no more pebbles in your mouth, 
if you put none in other creatures’. ” 

“ I did not know there was any harm it,” said Tom. 


133 


The Water-Babies 


“Then you know now. People continually say that to 
me : but I tell them, if you don't know that fire burns, that 
is no reason that it should not burn you ; and if you don’t 
know that dirt breeds fever, that is no reason why the fevers 
should not kill you. The lobster did not know that there 
was any harm in getting into the lobster-pot ; but it caught 
him all the same.” 

“ Dear me,” thought Tom, “ she knows everything ! ” 
And so she did, indeed. 

“ And so, if you do not know that things are wrong, that 
is no reason why you should not be punished for them ; 
though not as much, not as much, my little man ” (and the 
lady looked very kindly, after all), “as if you did know.” 

“Well, you are a little hard on a poor lad,” said Tom. 

“Not at all ; I am the best friend you ever had in all your 
life. But I will tell you; I cannot help punishing people 
when they do wrong. I like it no more than they do ; I am 
often very, very sorry for them, poor things: but I cannot 
help it. If I tried not to do it, I should do it all the same. 
For I work by machinery, just like an engine ; and am full 
of wheels and springs inside ; and am wound up very carefully, 
so that I cannot help going.” 

“ Was it long ago since they wound you up ? ” asked Tom. 
For he thought, the cunning little fellow, “ She will run 
down some day: or they may forget to wind her up, as old 
Grimes used to forget to wind up his watch when he came 
in from the public-house ; and then I shall be safe.” 

“ I was wound up once and for all, so long ago, that I 
forget all about it.” 

“ Dear me,” said Tom, “ you must have been made a long 
time ! ” 


134 


The Water-Babies 


“ I never w^as made, my child ; and I shall go for ever and 
ever; for I am as old as Eternity, and yet as young as Time.” 

And there came over the lady’s face a very curious expres- 
sion — very solemn, and very sad ; and yet very, very sweet. 
And she looked up and away, as if she were gazing through 
the sea, and through the sky, at something far, far off ; and 
as she did so, there came such a quiet, tender, patient, hope- 
ful smile over her face that Tom thought for a moment that 
she did not look ugly at all. And no more she did ; for she 
was like a great many people who have not a pretty feature in 
their faces, and yet are lovely to behold, and draw little chil- 
dren’s hearts to them at once; because though the house is 
plain enough, yet from the windows a beautiful and good spirit 
is looking forth. 

And Tom smiled in her face, she looked so pleasant for 
the moment. And the strange fairy smiled too, and said : 

“Yes. You thought me very ugly just now, did you not ?” 

Tom hung down his head, and got very red about the ears. 

“ And I am very ugly. I am the ugliest fairy in the 
world; and I shall be, till people behave themselves as they 
ought to do. And then I shall grow as handsome as my 
sister, who is the loveliest fairy in the world ; and her name is 
Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby. So she begins where I end, 
and I begin where she ends ; and those who will not listen 
to her must listen to me, as you will see. Now, all of you 
run away, except Tom ; and he may stay and see what I am 
going to do. It will be a very good warning for him to 
begin with, before he goes to school. 

“ Now, Tom, every Friday I come down here and call up 
all who have ill-used little children and serve them as they 
served the children.” 


135 


The Water-Babies 


And at that Tom was frightened, and crept under a stone ; 
which made the two crabs who lived there very angry, and 
frightened their friend the butter-fish into flapping hysterics : 
but he would not move for them. 

And first she called up all the doctors who give little 
children so much physic (they were most of them old ones ; 
for the young ones have learnt better, all but a few army 
surgeons, who still fancy that a baby’s inside is much like a 
Scotch grenadier’s), and she set them all in a row ; and very 
rueful they looked ; for they knew what was coming. 

And first she pulled all their teeth out ; and then she bled 
them all round: and then she dosed them with calomel, and 
jalap, and salts and senna, and brimstone and treacle; and 
horrible faces they made; and then she gave them a great 
emetic of mustard and water, and no basons ; and began all 
over again; and that was the way she spent the morning. 

And then she called up a whole troop of foolish ladies, 
who pinch up their children’s waists and toes ; and she laced 
them all up in tight stays, so that they were choked and sick, 
and their noses grew red, and their hands and feet swelled ; 
and then she crammed their poor feet into the most dread- 
fully tight boots, and made them all dance, which they did 
most clumsily indeed; and then she asked them how they 
liked it ; and when they said not at all, she let them go : 
because they had only done it out of foolish fashion, fancying 
it was for their children’s good, as if wasps’ waists and pigs’ 
toes could be pretty, or wholesome, or of any use to anybody. 

Then she called up all the careless nursery maids, and stuck 
pins into them all over, and wheeled them about in perambu- 
lators with tight straps across their stomachs and their heads 
and arms hanging over the side, till they were quite sick and 

136 


The Water-Babies 


Stupid, and would have had sun-strokes : but, being under the 
water, they could only have water-strokes; which, I assure 
you, are nearly as bad, as you will find if you try to sit under 
a mill-wheel. And mind — when you hear a rumbling at 
the bottom of the sea, sailors will tell you that it is a ground- 
swell : but now you know better. It is the old lady wheel- 
ing the maids about in perambulators. 

And by that time she was so tired, she had to go to 
luncheon. 

And after luncheon she set to work again, and called up all 
the cruel schoolmasters — whole regiments and brigades of 
them ; and when she saw them, she frowned most terribly, 
and set to work in earnest, as if the best part of the day’s 
work was to come. More than half of them were nasty, 
dirty, frowzy, grubby, smelly old monks, who, because they 
dare not hit a man of their own size, amused themselves with 
beating little children instead ; as you may see in the picture 
of old Pope Gregory (good man and true though he was, 
when he meddled with things which he did understand), 
teaching children to sing their fa-fa-mi-fa with a cat-o’-nine 
tails under his chair : but, because they never had any 
children of their own, they took into their heads (as some 
folks do still) that they were the only people in the world 
who knew how to manage children : and they first brought 
into England, in the old Anglo-Saxon times, the fashion of 
treating free boys, and girls too, worse than you would treat a 
dog or a horse: but Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid has caught them 
all long ago; and given them many a taste of their own rods; 
and much good may it do them. 

And she boxed their ears, and thumped them over the 
head with rulers, and pandied their hands with canes, and 


137 


The Water-Babies 


told them that they told stories, and were this and that bad 
sort of people ; and the more they were very indignant, and 
stood upon their honour, and declared they told the truth, 
the more she declared they were not, and that they were 
only telling lies ; and at last she birched them all round 
soundly with her great birch-rod and set them each an 
imposition of three hundred thousand lines of Hebrew to 
learn by heart before she came back next Friday. And at 
that they all cried and howled so, that their breaths came all 
up through the sea like bubbles out of soda-water; and that 
is one reason of the bubbles in the sea. There are others : 
but that is the one which principally concerns little boys. 
And by that time she was so tired that she was glad to stop ; 
and, indeed, she had done a very good day’s work. 

Tom did not quite dislike the old lady : but he could not 
help thinking her a little spiteful — and no wonder if she 
was, poor old soul ; for if she has to wait to grow handsome 
till people do as they would be done by, she will have to 
wait a very long time. 

Poor old Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid ! she has a great deal of 
hard work before her, and had better have been born a wash- 
erwoman, and stood over a tub all day : but, you see, people 
cannot always choose their own profession. 

But Tom longed to ask her one question ; and after all, 
whenever she looked at him, she did not look cross at all ; 
and now and then there was a funny smile in her face, and 
she chuckled to herself in a way which gave Tom courage, 
and at last he said : 

“ Pray, ma’am, may I ask you a question ?” 

“ Certainly, my little dear.” 

“ Why don’t you bring all the bad masters here and serve 
138 


The Water-Babies 


them out too ? The butties that knock about the poor col- 
lier-boys ; and the nailers that file off their lads’ noses and 
hammer their fingers ; and all the master sweeps, like my 
master Grimes ? I saw him fall into the water long ago ; 
so I surely expected he would have been here. I’ m sure he 
was bad enough to me.” 

Then the old lady looked so very stern that Tom was 
quite frightened, and sorry that he had been so bold. But 
she was not angry with him. She only answered, “ I look 
after them all the week round ; and they are in a very dif- 
ferent place from this, because they knew that they were 
doing wrong.” 

She spoke very quietly; but there was something in her 
voice which made Tom tingle from head to foot, as if he 
had got into a shoal of sea-nettles. 

“ But these people,” she went on, “did not know that 
they were doing wrong: they were only stupid and impa- 
tient ; and therefore I only punish them till they become 
patient, and learn to use their common sense like reasonable 
beings. But as for chimney-sweeps, and collier-boys, and 
nailer lads, my sister has set good people to stop all that sort 
of thing ; and very much obliged to her I am ; for if she 
could only stop the cruel masters from ill-using poor children, 
I should grow handsome at least a thousand years sooner. 
And now do you be a good boy, and do as you would be done 
by, which they did not ; and then, when my sister, Madame 
Doasyouwouldbedoneby, comes on Sunday, perhaps she will 
take notice of you, and teach you how to behave. She 
understands that better than I do.” And so she went. 

Tom was very glad to hear that there was no chance of 
meeting Grimes again, though he was a little sorry for him. 


139 


The Water-Babies 


considering that he used sometimes to give him the leavings 
of the beer : but he determined to be a very good boy all 
Saturday ; and he was ; for he never frightened one crab, nor 
tickled any live corals, nor put stones into the sea' anemones’ 
mouths, to make them fancy they had got a dinner; and 
when Sunday morning came, sure enough, Mrs. Doasyou- 
wouLDBEDONEBY Came too. Whereat all the little children 
began dancing and clapping their hands, and Tom danced 
too with all his might. 

And as for the pretty lady, I cannot tell you what the 
colour of her hair was, or of her eyes : no more could Tom ; 
for, when any one looks at her, all they can think of is, that 
she has the sweetest, kindest, tenderest, funniest, merriest face 
they ever saw, or want to see. But Tom saw that she was a 
very tall woman, as tall as her sister : but instead of being 
gnarly and horny, and scaly, and prickly, like her, she was 
the most nice, soft, fat, smooth, pussy, cuddly, delicious crea- 
ture who ever nursed a baby ; and she understood babies 
thoroughly, for she had plenty of her own, whole rows and 
regiments of them, and has to this day. And all her delight 
was, whenever she had a spare moment, to play with babies, 
in which she showed herself a woman of sense ; for babies 
are the best company, and the pleasantest playfellows, in the 
world ; at least, so all the wise people in the world think. 
And therefore when the children saw her, they naturally all 
caught hold of her, and pulled her till she sat down on a 
stone, and climbed into her lap, and clung round her neck, 
and caught hold of her hands ; and then they all put their 
thumbs into their mouths, and began cuddling and purring 
like so many kittens, as they ought to have done. While 
those who could get nowhere else sat down on the sand, and 

140 


The Water-Babies 


cuddled her feet — for no one, you know, wears shoes in the 
water, except horrid old bathing-women, who are afraid of 
the water-babies pinching their horny toes. And Tom stood 
staring at them ; for he could not understand what it was 
all about. 

“ And who are you, you little darling ? ’’ she said. 

“ Oh, that is the new baby ! ” they all cried, pulling their 
thumbs out of their mouths ; “ and he never had any mother,” 
and they all put their thumbs back again, for they did not 
wish to lose any time. 

“Then I will be his mother, and he shall have the very 
best place ; so get out, all of you, this moment.” 

And she took up two great armfuls of babies — nine hun- 
dred under one arm, and thirteen hundred under the other — 
and threw them away, right and left, into the water. But 
they minded it no more than the naughty boys in Struwel- 
peter minded when St. Nicholas dipped them in his inkstand; 
and did not even take their thumbs out of their mouths, but 
came paddling and wriggling back to her like so many tad- 
poles, till you could see nothing of her from head to foot for 
the swarm of little babies. 

But she took Tom in her arms, and laid him in the softest 
place of all, and kissed him, and patted him, and talked to 
him, tenderly and low, such things as he had never heard 
before in his life ; and Tom looked up into her eyes, and 
loved her, and loved, till he fell fast asleep from pure love. 

And when he woke she was telling the children a story. 
And what story did she tell them ? One story she told them, 
which begins every Christmas Eve, and yet never ends at all 
for ever and ever ; and, as she went on, the children took 
their thumbs out of their mouths and listened quite seriously ; 

141 


The Water-Babies 

but not sadly at all ; for she never told them anything sad ; 
and Tom listened too, and never grew tired of listening. 
And he listened so long that he fell fast asleep again, and, 
when he woke, the lady was nursing him still. 

“Don’t go away,” said little Tom. “This is so nice. I 
never had any one to cuddle me before.” 

“ Don’t go away,” said all the children ; “ you have not 
sung us one song.” 

“Well, I have time for only one. So what shall it be.?” 

“The doll you lost! The doll you lost!” cried all the 
babies at once. 

So the strange fairy sang: — 

I once had a sweet little doll, dears. 

The prettiest doll in the world; 

Her cheeks were so red and so white, dears, 

And her hair so charmingly curled. 

But I lost my poor little doll, dears. 

As I played in the heath one day ; 

And I cried for her more than a week, dears. 

But I never could find where she lay. 

I found my poor little doll, dears. 

As I played in the heath one day : 

Folks say she is terribly changed, dears. 

For her paint is all washed away. 

And her arm trodden ojf by the cows, dears. 

And her hair not the least bit curled: 

Yet, for old sake s' sake she is still, dears. 

The prettiest doll in the world. 

What a silly song for a fairy to sing ! 

And what silly water-babies to be quite delighted at it ! 


42 


The Water-Babies 


Well, but you see they have not the advantage of Aunt 
Agitato’s Arguments in the sea-land down below. 

“ Now,” said the fairy to Tom, “ will you be a good boy 
for my sake, and torment no more sea-beasts till I come 
back.?” 

“ And you will cuddle me again ? ” said poor little Tom. 

“ Of course I will, you little duck. I should like to take 
you with me and cuddle you all the way, only I must not ; ” 
and away she went. 

So Tom really tried to be a good boy, and tormented no 
sea-beasts after that as long as he lived ; and he is quite alive, 
I assure you, still. 

Oh, how good little boys ought to be who have kind pussy 
mammas to cuddle them and tell them stories ; and how 
afraid they ought to be of growing naughty, and bringing 
tears into their mammas’ pretty eyes ! 


143 


Chapter VI 

“ Thou little child, yet glorious in the night 
Of heaven-born freedom on thy Being's height, 

IVhy with such earnest pains dost thou provoke 
The Tears to bring the inevitable yoke — 

Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife ? 

Full soon thy soul shall have her earthly freight. 

And custom lie upon thee with a weight 
Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life." 

WoRDSWORru. 

H ere I come to the very saddest part of all my 
story. I know some people will only laugh at 
it, and call it much ado about nothing. But I 
know one man who would not ; and he was an 
officer with a pair of gray moustaches as long as your arm, 
who said once in company that two of the most heart- 
rending sights in the world, which moved him most to tears, 
which he would do anything to prevent or remedy, were a 
child over a broken toy and a child stealing sweets. 


144 


The Water-Babies 


The company did not laugh at him ; his moustaches were 
too long and too gray for that : but, after he was gone, they 
called him sentimental and so forth, all but one dear little 
old Quaker lady with a soul as white as her cap, who was 
not, of course, generally partial to soldiers; and she said very 
quietly, like a Quaker: 

“ Friends, it is borne upon my mind that that is a truly 
brave man.” 

Now you may fancy that Tom was quite good, when he 
had everything that he could want or wish : but you would 
be very much mistaken. Being quite comfortable is a very 
good thing; but it does not make people good. Indeed, it 
sometimes makes them naughty, as it has made the people in 
America ; and as it made the people in the Bible, who waxed 
fat and kicked, like horses overfed and underworked. And I 
am very sorry to say that this happened to little Tom. For 
he grew so fond of the sea-bullseyes and sea-lollipops that his 
foolish little head could think of nothing else : and he was 
always longing for more, and wondering when the strange 
lady would come again and give him some, and what she 
would give him, and how much, and whether she would give 
him more than the others. And he thought of nothing but 
lollipops by day, and dreamt of nothing else by night — and 
what happened then 

That he began to watch the lady to see where she kept 
the sweet things: and began hiding, and sneaking, and 
following her about, and pretending to be looking the other 
way, or going after something else, till he found out that she 
kept them in a beautiful mother-of-pearl cabinet away in a 
deep crack of the rocks. 

And he longed to go to the cabinet, and yet he was afraid; 


10 


145 


The Water-Babies 


and then he longed again, and was less afraid ; and at last, by 
continual thinking about it, he longed so violently that he 
was not afraid at all. And one night, when all the other 
children were asleep, and he could not sleep for thinking of 
lollipops, he crept away among the rocks, and got to the 
cabinet, and behold ! it was open. 

But, when he saw all the nice things inside, instead of 
being delighted, he was quite frightened, and wished he had 
never come there. And then he would only touch them, 
and he did ; and then he would only taste one, and he did ; 
and then he would only eat one, and he did; and then he 
would only eat two, and then three, and so on ; and then he 
was terrified lest she should come and catch him, and began 
gobbling them down so fast that he did not taste them, or 
have any pleasure in them ; and then he felt sick, and would 
have only one more; and then only one more again; and so 
on till he had eaten them all up. 

And all the while, close behind him, stood Mrs. Bedone- 
byasyoudid. 

Some people may say. But why did she not keep her cup- 
board locked? Well, I know. — It may seem a very strange 
thing, but she never does keep her cupboard locked; every 
one may go and taste for themselves, and fare accordingly. 
It is very odd, but so it is ; and I am quite sure that she 
knows best. Perhaps she wishes people to keep their fingers 
out of the fire, by having them burned. 

She took off her spectacles, because she did not like to see 
too much ; and in her pity she arched up her eyebrows into 
her very hair, and her eyes grew so wide that they would 
have taken in all the sorrows of the world, and filled with 
great big tears, as they too often do. 

146 


The Water-Babies 


But all she said was: 

“ Ah, you poor little dear ! you are just like all the rest.” 

But she said it to herself, and Tom neither heard nor saw 
her. Now, you must not fancy that she was sentimental at 
all. If you do, and think that she is going to let off you, or 
me, or any human being when we do wrong, because she is 
too tender-hearted to punish us, then you will find yourself 
very much mistaken, as many a man does every year and 
every day. 

But what did the strange fairy do when she saw all her 
lollipops eaten? 

Did she fly at Tom, catch him by the scruff of the neck, 
hold him, howk him, hump him, hurry him, hit him, poke 
him, pull him, pinch him, pound him, put him in the corner, 
shake him, slap him, set him on a cold stone to reconsider 
himself, and so forth ? 

Not a bit. You may watch her at work if you know 
where to find her. But you will never see her do that. For, 
if she had, she knew quite well Tom would have fought, 
and kicked, and bit, and said bad words, and turned again 
that moment into a naughty little heathen chimney-sweep, 
with his hand, like Ishmael’s of old, against every man, and 
every man’s hand against him. 

Did she question him, hurry him, frighten him, threaten 
him, to make him confess? Not a bit. You may see her, 
as I said, at her work often enough if you know where to 
look for her: but you will never see her do that. For, if 
she had, she would have tempted him to tell lies in his fright; 
and that would have been worse for him, if possible, than 
even becoming a heathen chimney-sweep again. 

No. She leaves that for anxious parents and teachers 


147 


The Water-Babies 


(lazy ones, some call them), who, instead of giving children a 
fair trial, such as they would expect and demand for them- 
selves, force them by fright to confess their own faults — 
which is so cruel and unfair that no judge on the bench dare 
do it to the wickedest thief or murderer, for the good British 
law forbids it — ay, and even punish them to make them 
confess, which is so detestable a crime that it is never com- 
mitted now, save by Inquisitors, and Kings of Naples, and a 
few other wretched people of whom the world is weary. 
And then they say, “We have trained up the child in the 
way he should go, and when he grew up he has departed 
from it. Why then did Solomon say that he would not 
depart from it?” But perhaps the way of beating, and 
hurrying, and frightening, and questioning, was not the way 
that the child should go; for it is not even the way in which 
a colt should go if you want to break it in and make it a 
quiet serviceable horse. 

Some folks may say, “ Ah ! but the Fairy does not need to 
do that if she knows everything already.” True. But, if 
she did not know, she would not surely behave worse than a 
British judge and jury ; and no more should parents and 
teachers either. 

So she just said nothing at all about the matter, not even 
when Tom came next day with the rest for sweet things. 
He was horribly afraid of coming: but he was still more 
afraid of staying away, lest any one should suspect him. He 
was dreadfully afraid, too, lest there should be no sweets — as 
was to be expected, he having eaten them all — and lest then 
the fairy should inquire who had taken them. But, behold ! 
she pulled out just as many as ever, which astonished Tom, 
and frightened him still more. 

148 


The Water-Babies 


And, when the fairy looked him full in the face, he shook 
from head to foot : however she gave him his share like the 
rest, and he thought within himself that she could not have 
found him out. 

But, when he put the sweets into his mouth, he hated the 
taste of them ; and they made him so sick that he had to get 
away as fast as he could ; and terribly sick he was, and very 
cross and unhappy, all the week after. 

Then, when next week came, he had his share again ; and 
again the fairy looked him full in the face; but more sadly 
than she had ever looked. And he could not bear the 
sweets : but took them again in spite of himself. 

And when Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby came, he wanted 
to be cuddled like the rest ; but she said very seriously ; 

“ I should like to cuddle you ; but I cannot, you are so 
horny and prickly.” 

And Tom looked at himself : and he was all over prickles, 
just like a sea-egg. 

Which was quite natural ; for you must know and believe 
that people’s souls make their bodies just as a snail makes its 
shell (I am not joking, my little man ; I am in serious, 
solemn earnest). And therefore, when Tom’s soul grew all 
prickly with naughty tempers, his body could not help grow- 
ing prickly too, so that nobody would cuddle him, or play 
with him, or even like to look at him. 

What could Tom do now but go away and hide in a 
corner and cry ? For nobody would play with him, and he 
knew full well why. 

And he was so miserable all that week that when the ugly 
fairy came and looked at him once more full in the face, 
more seriously and sadly than ever, he could stand it no 


149 


The Water-Babies 


longer, and thrust the sweetmeats away, saying, “No, I 
don’t want any : I can’t bear them now,” and then burst out 
crying, poor little man, and told Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid 
every word as it happened. 

He was horribly frightened when he had done so ; for he 
expected her to punish him very severely. But, instead, she 
only took him up and kissed him, which was not quite pleasant, 
for her chin was very bristly indeed ; but he was so lonely- 
hearted, he thought that rough kissing was better than none. 

“I will forgive you, little man,” she said. “ I always for- 
give every one the moment they tell me the truth of their 
own accord.” 

“ Then you will take away all these nasty prickles 

“That is a very different matter. You put them there 
yourself, and only you can take them away.” 

“ But how can I do that?” asked Tom, crying afresh. 

“ Well, I think it is time for you to go to school ; so I 
shall fetch you a schoolmistress, who will teach you how to 
get rid of your prickles.” And so she went away. 

Tom was frightened at the notion of a schoolmistress; for 
he thought she would certainly come with a birch-rod or a 
cane; but he comforted himself, at last, that she might be 
something like the old woman in Vendale — which she was 
not in the least ; for, when the fairy brought her, she was 
the most beautiful little girl that ever was seen, with long 
curls floating behind her like a golden cloud, and long robes 
floating all round her like a silver one. 

“ There he is,” said the fairy ; “ and you must teach him 
to be good, whether you like or not.” 

“ I know,” said the little girl; but she did not seem quite 
to like, for she put her finger in her mouth, and looked at 


The Water-Babies 


Tom under her brows ; and Tom put his finger in his mouth, 
and looked at her under his brows, for he was horribly 
ashamed of himself. 

The little girl seemed hardly to know how to begin ; and 
perhaps she would never have begun at all if poor Tom had 
not burst out crying, and begged her to teach him to be good 
and help him to cure his prickles ; and at that she grew so 
tender-hearted that she began teaching him as prettily as 
ever child was taught in the world. 

And what did the little girl teach Tom ? She taught 
him, first, what you have been taught ever since you said 
your first prayers at your mother’s knees ; but she taught him 
much more simply. For the lessons in that world, my child, 
have no such hard words in them as the lessons in this, and 
therefore the water-babies like them better than you like 
your lessons, and long to learn them more and more ; and 
grown men cannot puzzle nor quarrel over their meaning, as 
they do here on land ; for those lessons all rise clear and pure, 
like the Test out of Overton Pool, out of the everlasting 
ground of all life and truth. 

So she taught Tom every day in the week; only on Sun- 
days she always went away home, and the kind fairy took 
her place. And before she had taught Tom many Sundays, 
his prickles had vanished quite away, and his skin was smooth 
and clean again. 

“Dear me!” said the little girl; “why, I know you 
now. You are the very same little chimney-sweep who 
came into my bedroom.” 

“Dear me! ” cried Tom. “And I know you, too, now. 
You are the very little white lady whom I saw in bed.” 
And he jumped at her, and longed to hug and kiss her; but 


The Water-Babies 


did not, remembering that she was a lady born ; so he only 
jumped round and round her till he was quite tired. 

And then they began telling each other all their story — 
how he had got into the water, and she had fallen over the 
rock ; and how he had swum down to the sea, and how she 
had flown out of the window ; and how this, that, and the 
other, till it was all talked out : and then they both began 
over again, and I can’t say which of the two talked fastest. 

And then they set to work at their lessons again, and both 
liked them so well that they went on well till seven full 
years were past and gone. 

You may fancy that Tom was quite content and happy all 
those seven years ; but the truth is, he was not. He had 
always one thing on his mind, and that was — where little 
Ellie went, when she went home on Sundays. 

To a very beautiful place, she said. 

But what was the beautiful place like, and where was it ? 

Ah ! that is just what she could not say. And it is strange, 
but true, that no one can say ; and that those who have been 
oftenest in it, or even nearest to it, can say least about it, and 
make people understand least what it is like. There are a 
good many folks about the Other-end-of-Nowhere (where 
Tom went afterwards), who pretend to know it from north 
to south as well as if they had been penny postmen there ; 
but, as they are safe at the Other-end-of-Nowhere, nine hun- 
dred and ninety-nine million miles away, what they say 
cannot concern us. 

But the dear, sweet, loving, wise, good, self-sacrificing 
people, who really go there, can never tell you anything 
about it, save that it is the most beautiful place in all the 
world ; and, if you ask them more, they grow modest, and 

152 


The Water-Babies 

hold their peace, for fear of being laughed at; and quite 
right they are. 

So all that good little Elbe could say was, that it was 
worth all the rest of the world put together. And of course 
that only made Tom the more anxious to go likewise. 

“ Miss Elbe,” he said at last, “ I will know why I cannot 
go with you when you go home on Sundays, or I shall have 
no peace, and give you none either.” 

“You must ask the fairies that.” 

So when the fairy, Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid, came next, 
Tom asked her. 

“Little boys who are only fit to play with sea-beasts can- 
not go there,” she said. “ Those who go there must go 
first where they do not like, and do what they do not like, 
and help somebody they do not like.” 

“ Why, did Elbe do that ? ” 

“ Ask her.” 

And Elbe blushed, and said, “ Yes, Tom, I did not like 
coming here at first ; I was so much happier at home, where 
it is always Sunday. And I was afraid of you, Tom, at first, 
because — because — ” 

“ Because I was all over prickles ? But I am not prickly 
now, am I, Miss Elbe ? ” 

“ No,” said Elbe. “ I like you very much now ; and I 
like coming here, too.” 

“ And perhaps,” said the fairy, “ you will learn to like 
going where you don’t like, and helping some one that you 
don’t like, as Elbe has.” 

But Tom put his finger in his mouth, and hung his head 
down ; for he did not see that at all. 

So when Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby came, Tom asked 


153 


The Water-Babies 


her ; for he thought in his little head, She is not so strict as 
her sister, and perhaps she may let me off more easily. 

Ah, Tom, Tom, silly fellow ! and yet I don’t know why 
I should blame you, while so many grown people have got 
the very same notion in their heads. 

But, when they try it, they get just the same answer as 
Tom did. For, when he asked the second fairy, she told 
him just what the first did, and in the very same words. 

Tom was very unhappy at that. And, when Ellie went 
home on Sunday, he fretted and cried all day, and did not 
care to listen to the fairy’s stories about good children, 
though they were prettier than ever. Indeed, the more he 
overheard of them, the less he liked to listen, because they 
were all about children who did what they did not like, and 
took trouble for other people, and worked to feed their little 
brothers and sisters instead of caring only for their play. 
And, when she began to tell a story about a holy child in 
old times, who was martyred by the heathen because it 
would not worship idols, Tom could bear no more, and ran 
away and hid among the rocks. 

And, when Ellie came back, he was shy with her, because 
he fancied she looked down on him, and thought him a 
coward. And then he grew quite cross with her, because 
she was superior to him, and did what he could not do. 
And poor Ellie was quite surprised and sad; and at last Tom 
burst out crying; but he would not tell her what was really 
in his mind. 

And all the while he was eaten up with curiosity to know 
where Ellie went to ; so that he began not to care for his 
playmates, or for the sea-palace or anything else. But per- 
haps that made matters all the easier for him ; for he grew 


54 









The Water-Babies 


SO discontented with everything round him that he did not 
care to stay, and did not care where he went. 

“Well,” he said, at last, “I am so miserable here. I’ll 
go; if only you will go with me?” 

“Ah!” said Ellie, “I wish I might; but the worst of it 
is, that the fairy says that you must go alone if you go at all. 
Now don’t poke that poor crab about, Tom ” (for he was 
feeling very naughty and mischievous), “or the fairy will 
have to punish you.” 

Tom was very nearly saying, “I don’t care if she does; ” 
but he stopped himself in time. 

“ I know what she wants me to do,” he said, whining 
most dolefully. “ She wants me to go after that horrid old 
Grimes. I don’t like him, that ’s certain. And if I find 
him, he will turn me into a chimney-sweep again, I know. 
That ’s what I have been afraid of all along.” 

“ No, he won’t — I know as much as that. Nobody can 
turn water-babies into sweeps, or hurt them at all, as long as 
they are good.” 

“ Ah,” said naughty Tom, “ I see what you want ; you 
are persuading me all along to go,' because you are tired of 
me, and want to get rid of me.” 

Little Ellie opened her eyes very wide at that, and they 
were all brimming over with tears. 

“ Oh, Tom, Tom ! ” she said, very mournfully — and then 
she cried, “Oh, Tom 1 where are you ?” 

And Tom cried, “ Oh, Ellie, where are you ? ” 

For neither of them could see each other — not the least. 
Little Ellie vanished quite away, and Tom heard her voice 
calling him, and growing smaller and smaller, and fainter and 
fainter, till all was silent. 


155 


The Water-Babies 


Who was frightened then but Tom ? He swam up and 
down among the rocks, into all the halls and chambers, faster 
than ever he swam before, but could not find her. He 
shouted after her, but she did not answer; he asked all the 
other children, but they had not seen her ; and at last he 
went up to the top of the water and began crying and scream- 
ing for Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid — which perhaps was the best 
thing to do — for she came in a moment. 

“Oh!” said Tom. “Oh dear, oh dear! I have been 
naughty to Elbe, and I have killed her — I know I have 
killed her.” 

“Not quite that,” said the fairy; “but I have sent her 
away home, and she will not come back again for I do not 
know how long.” 

And at that Tom cried so bitterly that the salt sea was 
swelled with his tears, and the tide was -3,954,620,819 of an 
inch higher than it had been the day before : but perhaps 
that was owing to the waxing of the moon. It may have 
been so ; but it is considered right in the new philosophy, 
you know, to give spiritual causes for physical phenomena — 
especially in parlour-tables ; and, of course, physical causes for 
spiritual ones, like thinking, and praying, and knowing right 
from wrong. And so they odds it till it comes even, as folks 
say down in Berkshire. 

“ How cruel of you to send Elbe away ! ” sobbed Tom. 
“However, I will find her again, if I go to the world’s end 
to look for her.” 

The fairy did not slap Tom, and tell him to hold his 
tongue : but she took him on her lap very kindly, just as her 
sister would have done ; and put him in mind how it was not 
her fault, because she was wound up inside, like watches, and 

156 


The Water-Babies 


could not help doing things whether she liked or not. And 
then she told him how he had been in the nursery long 
enough, and must go out now and see the world, if he in- 
tended ever to be a man ; and how he must go all alone by 
himself, as every one else that ever was born has to go, and 
see with his own eyes, and smell with his own nose, and 
make his own bed and lie on it, and burn his own fingers if 
he put them into the fire. And then she told him how many 
fine things there were to be seen in the world, and what an 
odd, curious, pleasant, orderly, respectable, well-managed, 
and, on the whole, successful (as, indeed, might have been 
expected) sort of a place it was, if people would only be 
tolerably brave and honest and good in it ; and then she told 
him not to be afraid of anything he met, for nothing would 
harm him if he remembered all his lessons, and did what he 
knew was right. And at last she comforted poor little Tom 
so much that he was quite eager to go, and wanted to set out 
that minute. “ Only,” he said, “ if I might see Elbe once 
before I went ! ” 

“Why do you want that ?” 

“Because — because I should be so much happier if I 
thought she had forgiven me.” 

And in the twinkling of an eye there stood Elbe, smiling, 
and looking so happy that Tom longed to kiss her ; but was still 
afraid it would not be respectful, because she was a lady born. 

“ I am going, Elbe ! ” said Tom. “I am going, if it is to 
the world^s end. But I don’t like going at all, and that’s 
the truth.” 

“ Pooh ! pooh ! pooh ! ” said the fairy. “ You will like it 
very well indeed, you little rogue, and you know that at the 
bottom of your heart. But if you don’t, I will make you like 


57 


The Water-Babies 


it. Come here, and see what happens to people who do only 
what is pleasant.” 

And she took out of one of her cupboards (she had all sorts 
of mysterious cupboards in the cracks of the rocks) the most 
wonderful waterproof book, full of such photographs as never 
were seen. For she had found out photography (and this a 
fact) more than 13,598,000 years before anybody was born ; 
and, what is more, her photographs did not merely represent 
light and shade, as ours do, but colour also, and all colours, 
as you may see if you look at a black-cock’s tail, or a butter- 
fly’s wing, or indeed most things that are or can be, so to 
speak. And therefore her photographs were very curious and 
famous, and the children looked with great delight for the 
opening of the book. 

And on the title-page was written, “The History of the 
great and famous nation of the Doasyoulikes, who came away 
from the country of Hardwork, because they wanted to play 
on the Jews’ harp all day long.” 

In the first picture they saw these Doasyoulikes living in 
the land of Readymade, at the foot of the Happy-go-lucky 
Mountains, where flapdoodle grows wild ; and if you want to 
know what that is, you must read Peter Simple. 

They lived very much such a life as those jolly old Greeks 
in Sicily, whom you may see painted on the ancient vases, 
and really there seemed to be great excuses for them, for 
they had no need to work. 

Instead of houses they lived in the beautiful caves of tufa, 
and bathed in the warm springs three times a day ; and, as 
for clothes, it was so warm there that the gentlemen walked 
about in little beside a cocked hat and a pair of straps, or 
some light summer tackle of that kind; and the ladies all 

158 


The Water-Babies 

gathered gossamer in autumn (when they were not too lazy) 
to make their winter dresses. 

They were very fond of music, but it was too much trouble 
to learn the piano or the violin ; and as for dancing, that 
would have been too great an exertion. So they sat on ant- 
hills all day long, and played on the Jews’ harp; and, if the 
ants bit them, why they just got up and went to the next 
ant-hill, till they were bitten there likewise. 

And they sat under the flapdoodle-trees, and let the flap- 
doodle drop into their mouths ; and under the vines, and 
squeezed the grape-juice down their throats ; and, if any little 
pigs ran about ready roasted, crying, “ Come and eat me,” 
as was their fashion in that country, they waited till the pigs 
ran against their mouths, and then took a bite, and were con- 
tent, just as so many oysters would have been. 

They needed no weapons, for no enemies ever came near 
their land ; and no tools, for everything was readymade to 
their hand ; and the stern old fairy Necessity never came near 
them to hunt them up, and make them use their wits, or die. 

And so on, and so on, and so on, till there were never such 
comfortable, easy-going, happy-go-lucky people in the world. 

‘‘Well, that is a jolly life,” said Tom. 

“You think so.? ” said the fairy. “Do you see that great 
peaked mountain there behind,” said the fairy, “ with smoke 
coming out of its top ? ” 

“Yes.” 

“ And do you see all those ashes, and slag, and cinders 
lying about .? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Then turn over the next five hundred years, and you will 
see what happens next.” 


159 


The Water-Babies 


And behold the mountain had blown up like a barrel of 
gunpowder, and then boiled over like a kettle ; whereby one- 
third of the Doasyoulikes were blown into the air, and 
another third were smothered in ashes ; so that there was 
only one-third left. 

“You see,” said the fairy, “what comes of living on a 
burning mountain.” 

“ Oh, why did you not warn them ? ” said little Ellie. 

“ I did warn them all that I could. I let the smoke come 
out of the mountain ; and wherever there is smoke there is 
fire. And I laid the ashes and cinders all about ; and wher- 
ever there are cinders, cinders may be again. But they did 
not like to face facts, my dears, as very few people do ; and 
so they invented a cock-and-bull story, which, I am sure, I 
never told them, that the smoke was the breath of a giant, 
whom some gods or other had buried under the mountain ; 
and that the cinders were what the dwarfs roasted the little 
pigs whole with ; and other nonsense of that kind. And, 
when folks are in that humour, I cannot teach them, save by 
the good old birch-rod.” 

And then she turned over the next five hundred years: and 
there were the remnant of the Doasyoulikes, doing as they 
liked, as before. They were too lazy to move away from 
the mountain ; so they said. If it has blown up once, that is 
all the more reason that it should not blow up again. And 
they were few in number: but they only said. The more the 
merrier, but the fewer the better fare. However, that was 
not quite true; for all the flapdoodle-trees were killed by the 
volcano, and they had eaten all the roast pigs, who, of course, 
could not be expected to have little ones. So they had to 
live very hard, on nuts and roots which they scratched out 


The Water-Babies 


of the ground with sticks. Some of them talked of sowing 
corn, as their ancestors used to do, before they came into the 
land of Readymade; but they had forgotten how to make 
ploughs (they had forgotten even how to make Jews’ harps 
by this time), and had eaten all the seed-corn which they 
brought out of the land of Hardwork years since; and of 
course it was too much trouble to go away and find more. 
So they lived miserably on roots and nuts, and all the weakly 
little children had great stomachs, and then died. 

“Why,” said Tom, “they are growing no better than 
savages.” 

“And look how ugly they are all getting,” said Elbe. 

“Yes; when people live on poor vegetables instead of 
roast beef and plum-pudding, their jaws grow large, and their 
lips grow coarse, like the poor Paddies who eat potatoes.” 

And she turned over the next five hundred years. And 
there they were all living up in trees, and making nests to 
keep off the rain. And underneath the trees lions were prowl- 
ing about. 

“Why,” said Elbe, “the lions seem to have eaten a good 
many of them, for there are very few left now.” 

“Yes,” said the fairy; “you see it was only the strongest 
and most active ones who could climb the trees, and so escape.” 

“ But what great, hulking, broad-shouldered chaps they 
are,” said Tom ; “ they are a rough lot as ever I saw.” 

Yes, they are getting very strong now; for the ladies will 
not marry any but the very strongest and fiercest gentlemen, 
who can help them up the trees out of the lions’ way.” 

And she turned over the next five hundred years. And in 
that they were fewer still, and stronger, and fiercer ; but their 
feet had changed shape very oddly, for they laid hold of the 

i6i 


II 


The Water-Babies 


branches with their great toes, as if they had been thumbs, just 
as a Hindoo tailor uses his toes to thread his needle. 

The children were very much surprised, and asked the 
fairy whether that was her doing. 

“Yes, and no,” she said, smiling. “It was only those 
who could use their feet as well as their hands who could 
get a good living : or, indeed, get married ; so that they got 
the best of everything, and starved out all the rest ; and those 
who are left keep up a regular breed of toe-thumb-men, as a 
breed of short-horns, or skye- terriers, or fancy pigeons is 
kept up.” 

“ But there is a hairy one among them,” said Ellie. 

“Ah!” said the fairy, “that will be a great man in his 
time, and chief of all the tribe.” 

And, when she turned over the next five hundred years, it 
was true. 

For this hairy chief had had hairy children, and they 
hairier children still ; and every one wished to marry hairy 
husbands, and have hairy children too ; for the climate was 
growing so damp that none but the hairy ones could live: 
all the rest coughed and sneezed, and had sore throats, and 
went into consumptions, before they could grow up to be 
men and women. 

Then the fairy turned over the next five hundred years. 
And they were fewer still. 

“ Why, there is one on the ground picking up roots,” said 
Ellie, “ and he cannot walk upright.” 

No more he could; for in the same way that the shape of 
their feet had altered, the shape of their backs had altered 
also. 

“Why,” cried Tom, “I declare they are all apes.” 


162 


The Water-Babies 


“ Something fearfully like it, poor foolish creatures,” said 
the fairy. “ They are grown so stupid now, that they can 
hardly think : for none of them have used their wits for many 
hundred years. They have almost forgotten, too, how to 
talk. For each stupid child forgot some of the words it 
heard from its stupid parents, and had not wits enough to 
make fresh words for itself. Beside, they are grown so fierce 
and suspicious and brutal that they keep out of each other’s 
way, and mope and sulk in the dark forests, never hearing 
each other’s voice, till they have forgotten almost what speech 
is like. I am afraid they will all be apes very soon, and all 
by doing only what they liked.” 

And in the next five hundred years they were all dead and 
gone, by bad food and wild beasts and hunters ; all except 
one tremendous old fellow with jaws like a jack, who stood 
full seven feet high ; and M. Du Chaillu came up to him, 
and shot him, as he stood roaring and thumping his breast. 
And he remembered that his ancestors had once been men, 
and tried to say, ‘‘ Am I not a man and a brother ? ” but had 
forgotten how to use his tongue ; and then he tried to call 
for a doctor, but he had forgotten the word for one. So all 
he said was “ Ubboboo ! ” and died. 

And that was the end of the great and jolly nation of the 
Doasyoulikes. And, when Tom and Elbe came to the end 
of the book, they looked very sad and solemn; and they had 
good reason so to do, for they really fancied that the men 
were apes, and never thought, in their simplicity, of asking 
whether the creatures had hippopotamus majors in their brains 
or not; in which case, as you have been told already, they 
could not possibly have been apes, though they were more 
apish than the apes of all aperies. 

163 


The Water-Babies 


‘‘ But could you not have saved them from becoming 
apes ? ” said little Elbe, at last. 

“ At first, my dear ; if only they would have behaved like 
men, and set to work to do what they did not like. But the 
longer they waited, and behaved like the dumb beasts, who 
only do what they like, the stupider and clumsier they grew ; 
till at last they were past all cure, for they had thrown their 
own wits away. It is such things as this that help to make 
me so ugly, that I know not when I shall grow fair.’’ 

“And where are they all now.?” asked Ellie. 

“ Exactly where they ought to be, my dear.” 

“Yes!” said the fairy, solemnly, half to herself, as she 
closed the wonderful book. “Folks say now that I can make 
beasts into men, by circumstance, and selection, and competi- 
tion, and so forth. Well, perhaps they are right ; and per- 
haps, again, they are wrong. That is one of the seven things 
which I am forbidden to tell, till the coming of the Cocqci- 
grues ; and, at all events, it is no concern of theirs. What- 
ever their ancestors were, men they are ; and I advise them 
to behave as such, and act accordingly. But let them recol- 
lect this, that there are two sides to every question, and a 
downhill as well as an uphill road ; and, if I can turn beasts 
into men, I can, by the same laws of circumstance, and selec- 
tion, and competition, turn men into beasts. You were very 
near being turned into a beast once or twice, little Tom. 
Indeed, if you had not made up your mind to go on this 
journey, and see the world, like an Englishman, I am not 
sure but that you would have ended as an eft in a pond.” 

“Oh, dear me!” said Tom; “sooner than that, and be 
all over slime. I’ll go this minute, if it is to the world’s end.” 


164 



Chapter VII 


“ And Nature^ the old Nurse^ took 
The child upon her knee^ 

Sayings ‘ Here is a story book 

Thy father hath written for thee. 


“ ‘ Come wander with me^ she said.^ 
‘ Into regions yet untrod.^ 

And read what is still unread 
In the Manuscripts of God.' 


‘‘ And he wandered away and away 
With Nature^ the dear old Hurse^ 

Who sang to him night and day 
The rhymes of the universe." 

Longfelloo'. 



"OW,” said Tom, I am ready to be off, if it's 
to the world’s end.” 

“ Ah ! ” said the fairy, “ that is a brave, good 
boy. But you must go farther than the world’s 
end, if you want to find Mr. Grimes ; for he is at the Other- 
end-of-Nowhere. You must go to Shiny Wall, and through 
the white gate that never was opened ; and then you will 
come to Peacepool, and Mother Carey’s Haven, where the 
good whales go when they die. And there Mother Carey 
will tell you the way to the Other-end-of-Nowhere, and 
there you will find Mr. Grimes.” 

i6s 


The Water-Babies 


“Oh, dear!” said Tom. “ But I do not know my way 
to Shiny Wall, or where it is at all.” 

“ Little boys must take the trouble to find out things for 
themselves, or they will never grow to be men ; so that you 
must ask all the beasts in the sea and the birds in the air, and 
if you have been good to them, some of them will tell you 
the way to Shiny Wall.” 

“Well,” said Tom, “it will be a long journey, so I had 
better start at once. Good-bye, Miss Elbe ; you know I am 
getting a big boy, and I must go out and see the world.” 

“I know you must,” said Elbe; “but you will not forget 
me, Tom. I shall wait here till you come.” 

And she shook hands with him, and bade him good-bye. 
Tom longed very much again to kiss her ; but he thought it 
would not be respectful, considering she was a lady born ; so 
he promised not to forget her : but his little whirl-about of 
a head was so full of the notion of going out to see the world, 
that it forgot her in five minutes : however, though his head 
forgot her, I am glad to say his heart did not. 

So he asked all the beasts in the sea, and all the birds in 
the air, but none of them knew the way to Shiny Wall. 
For why ? He was still too far down south. 

Then he met a ship, far larger than he had ever seen — 
a gallant ocean-steamer, with a long cloud of smoke trailing 
behind ; and he wondered how she went on without sails, 
and swam up to her to see. A school of dolphins were run- 
ning races round and round her, going three feet for her one, 
and Tom asked them the way to Shiny Wall: but they did 
not know. Then he tried to find out how she moved, and 
at last he saw her screw, and was so delighted with it that he 
played under her quarter all day, till he nearly had his nose 


i66 


The Water-Babies 


knocked off by the fans, and thought it time to move. Then 
he 'watched the sailors upon deck, and the ladies, with their 
bonnets and parasols : but none of them could see him, be- 
cause their eyes were not opened, — as, indeed, most people’s 
eyes are not. 

At last there came out into the quarter-gallery a very pretty 
lady, in deep black widow’s weeds, and in her arms a baby. 
She leaned over the quarter-gallery, and looked back and 
back toward England far away ; and as she looked she sang : 

I. 

“ Soft soft wind, from out the sweet south sliding. 

Waft thy silver cloud-webs athwart the summer sea ; 

'Thin thin threads of mist on dewy fingers twining 
W eave a veil of dappled gauze to shade my babe and me, 

II. 

“ T>eep deep Love, within thine own abyss abiding. 

Pour Thyself abroad, O Lord, on earth and air and sea ; 

Worn weary hearts within Thy holy temple hiding. 

Shield from sorrow, sin, and shame my helpless babe and meP 

Her voice was so soft and low, and the music of the air so 
sweet, that Tom could have listened to it all day. But as 
she held the baby over the gallery rail, to show it the dol- 
phins leaping and the water gurgling in the ship’s wake, lo ! 
and behold, the baby saw Tom. 

He was quite sure of that ; for when their eyes met, the 
baby smiled and held out his hands; and Tom smiled and 
held out his hands too ; and the baby kicked and leaped, as 
if it wanted to jump overboard to him. 

167 


The Water-Babies 


“ What do you see, my darling ? ” said the lady ; and her 
eyes followed the baby's till she too caught sight of Tom, 
swimming about among the foam-beads below. 

She gave a little shriek and start ; and then she said, quite 
quietly, “ Babies in the sea ? Well, perhaps it is the happiest 
place for them;” and waved her hand to Tom, and cried, 
“Wait a little, darling, only a little: and perhaps we shall 
go with you and be at rest.” 

And at that an old nurse, all in black, came out and talked 
to her, and drew her in. And Tom turned away northward, 
sad and wondering; and watched the great steamer slide 
away into the dusk, and the lights on board peep out one by 
one, and die out again, and the long bar of smoke fade away 
into the evening mist, till all was out of sight. 

And he swam northward again, day after day, till at last he 
met the King of the Herrings, with a currycomb growing 
out of his nose, and a sprat in his mouth for a cigar, and 
asked him the way to Shiny Wall ; so he bolted his sprat 
head foremost, and said: 

“ If I were you, young gentleman, I should go to the All- 
alonestone, and ask the last of the Gairfowl. She is of a 
very ancient clan, very nearly as ancient as my own; and 
knows a good deal which these modern upstarts don’t, as 
ladies of old houses are likely to do.” 

Tom asked his way to her, and the King of the Herrings 
told him very kindly, for he was a courteous old gentleman 
of the old school, though he was horribly ugly, and strangely 
bedizened too, like the old dandies who lounge in the club- 
house windows. 

But just as Tom had thanked him and set off, he called 
after him : “Hi! I say, can you fly ? ” 


i68 


The Water-Babies 


“I never tried,” says Tom. “Why?” 

“ Because, if you can, I should advise you to say nothing 
to the old lady about it. There; take a hint. Good-bye.” 

And away Tom went for seven days and seven nights due 
north-west, till he came to a great codbank, the like of which 
he never saw before. The great cod lay below in tens of 
thousands, and gobbled shell-fish all day long ; and the blue 
sharks roved above in hundreds, and gobbled them when they 
came up. So they ate, and ate, and ate each other, as they 
had done since the making of the world ; for no man had 
come here yet to catch them, and find out how rich old 
Mother Carey is. 

And there he saw the last of the Gairfowl, standing up on 
the Allalonestone, all alone. And a very grand old lady she 
was, full three feet high, and bolt upright, like some old 
Highland chieftainess. She had on a black velvet gown, and 
a white pinner and apron, and a very high bridge to her nose 
(which is a sure mark of high breeding), and a large pair of 
white spectacles on it, which made her look rather odd : but 
it was the ancient fashion of her house. 

And instead of wings, she had two little feathery arms, 
with which she fanned herself, and complained of the dread- 
ful heat ; and she kept on crooning an old song to herself, 
which she learnt when she was a little baby-bird, long ago — 

“ T wo little birds they sat on a stone. 

One swam away, and then there was one. 

With a fal-lal-la4ady, 

“ T^he other swam after, and then there was none. 

And so the poor stone was left all alone ; 

With a fal-lal-la-lady y 
169 


The Water-Babies 


It was ‘‘flew” away, properly, and not “swam” away: 
but, as she could not fly, she had a right to alter it. How- 
ever, it was a very fit song for her to sing, because she was a 
lady herself. 

Tom came up to her very humbly, and made his bow; 
and the first thing she said was — 

“Have you wings? Can you fly?” 

“Oh dear, no, ma’am; I should not think of such a 
thing,” said cunning little Tom. 

“ Then I shall have great pleasure in talking to you, my 
dear. It is quite refreshing nowadays to see anything with- 
out wings. They must all have wings, forsooth, now, every 
new upstart sort of bird, and fly. What can they want with 
flying, and raising themselves above their proper station in 
life ? In the days of my ancestors no birds ever thought of 
having wings, and did very well without ; and now they all 
laugh at me because I keep to the good old fashion. Why, 
the very marrocks and dovekies have got wings, the vulgar 
creatures, and poor little ones enough they are ; and my own 
cousins too, the razor-bills, who are gentlefolk born, and 
ought to know better than to ape their inferiors.” 

And so she was running on, while Tom tried to get in a 
word edgeways; and at last he did, when the old lady got 
out of breath, and began fanning herself again; and then he 
asked if she knew the way to Shiny Wall. 

“ Shiny Wall ? Who should know better than I ? We 
all came from Shiny Wall, thousands of years ago, when it 
was decently cold, and the climate was fit for gentlefolk ; but 
now, what with the heat, and what with these vulgar-winged 
things who fly up and down and eat everything, so that 
gentlepeople’s hunting is all spoilt, and one really cannot get 


170 









The Water-Babies 


one’s living, or hardly venture off the rock for fear of being 
flown against by some creature that would not have dared to 
come within a mile of one a thousand years ago — what was 
I saying ? Why, we have quite gone down in the world, my 
dear, and have nothing left but our honour. And I am the 
last of my family. A friend of mine and I came and settled 
on this rock when we were young, to be out of the way of 
low people. Once we were a great nation, and spread over 
all the Northern Isles. But men shot us so, and knocked us 
on the head, and took our eggs — why, if you will believe it, 
they say that on the coast of Labrador the sailors used to lay 
a plank from the rock on board the thing called their ship, 
and drive us along the plank by hundreds, till we tumbled 
down into the ship s waist in heaps ; and then, I suppose, 
they ate us, the nasty fellows! Well — but — what was I 
saying ? At last, there were none of us left, except on the 
old Gairfowlskerry, just off the Iceland coast, up which no 
man could climb. Even there we had no peace ; for one 
day, when I was quite a young girl, the land rocked, and the 
sea boiled, and the sky drew dark, and all the air was filled 
with smoke and dust, and down tumbled the old Gairfowls- 
kerry into the sea. The dovekies and marrocks, of course, 
all flew away; but we were too proud to do that. Some of 
us were dashed to pieces, and some drowned ; and those who 
were left got away to Eldey, and the dovekies tell me they 
are all dead now, and that another Gairfowlskerry has risen 
out of the sea close to the old one, but that it is such a poor 
flat place that it is not safe to live on : and so here I am left 
alone.” 

This was the Gairfowl’s story, and, strange as it may seem, 
it is every word of it true. 


The Water-Babies 


“If you only had had wings!” said Tom; “then you 
might all have flown away too.” 

“Yes, young gentleman: and if people are not gentlemen 
and ladies, and forget that noblesse oblige, they will find it as 
easy to get on in the world as other people who don’t care 
what they do. Why, if I had not recollected that noblesse 
oblige, I should not have been all alone now.” And the poor 
old lady sighed. 

“ How was that, ma ’am 

“ Why, my dear, a gentleman came hither with me, and 
after we had been here some time, he wanted to marry — in 
fact, he actually proposed to me. Well, I can’t blame him; 
I was young, and very handsome then, I don’t deny : but you 
see, I could not hear of such a thing, because he was my 
deceased sister’s husband, you see ? ” 

“Of course not, ma’am,” said Tom; though, of course, 
he knew nothing about it. “ She was very much diseased, I 
suppose ? ” 

“You do not understand me, my dear. I mean, that 
being a lady, and with right and honourable feelings, as our 
house always has had, I felt it my duty to snub him and 
howk him, and peck him continually, to keep him at his 
proper distance ; and, to tell the truth, I once pecked him a 
little too hard, poor fellow, and he tumbled backwards off 
the rock, and — really, it was very unfortunate, but it was not 
my fault — a shark coming by saw him flapping, and snapped 
him up. And since then I have lived all alone — 

‘ With a fal-lal-la-lady J 

And soon I shall be gone, my little dear, and nobody will 
miss me ; and then the poor stone will be left all alone.” 


172 


The Water-Babies 


“But, please, which is the way to Shiny Wall?” said Tom. 

“Oh, you must go, my little dear — you must go. Let 
me see — I am sure — that is — really, my poor old brains 
are getting quite puzzled. Do you know, my little dear, I 
am afraid, if you want to know, you must ask some of these 
vulgar birds about, for I have quite forgotten.” 

And the poor old Gairfowl began to cry tears of pure oil ; 
and Tom was quite sorry for her; and for himself too, for he 
was at his wit’s end whom to ask. 

But by there came a flock of petrels, who are Mother 
Carey’s own chickens ; and Tom thought them much pret- 
tier than Lady Gairfowl, and so perhaps they were; for 
Mother Carey had had a great deal of fresh experience 
between the time that she invented the Gairfowl and the 
time that she invented them. They flitted along like a flock 
of black swallows, and hopped and skipped from wave to 
wave, lifting up their little feet behind them so daintily, and 
whistling to each other so tenderly, that Tom fell in love 
with them at once, and called them to know the way to 
Shiny Wall. 

“Shiny Wall? Do you want Shiny Wall ? Then come 
with us, and we will show you. We are Mother Carey’s 
own chickens, and she sends us out over all the seas, to show 
the good birds the way home.” 

Tom was delighted, and swam oflF to them, after he had 
made his bow to the Gairfowl. But she would not return 
his bow : but held herself bolt upright, and wept tears of oil 
as she sang : 


“ And so the poor stone was left all alone ; 
With a fal-lal-la-lady r 


173 


The Water-Babies 


But she was wrong there ; for the stone was not left all 
alone : and the next time that Tom goes by it, he will see 
a sight worth seeing. 

The old Gairfowl is gone already : but there are better 
things come in her place; and when Tom comes he will see 
the fishing-smacks anchored there in hundreds, from Scotland, 
and from Ireland, and from the Orkneys, and the Shetlands, 
and from all the Northern ports, full of the children of the 
old Norse Vikings, the masters of the sea. And the men 
will be hauling in the great cod by thousands, till their hands 
are sore from the lines ; and they will be making cod-liver 
oil and guano, and salting down the fish ; and there will be 
a man-of-war steamer there to protect them, and a light- 
house to show them the way ; and you and I, perhaps, shall 
go some day to the Allalonestone to the great summer sea- 
fair, and dredge strange creatures such as man never saw 
before ; and we shall hear the sailors boast that it is not 
the worst jewel in Queen Victoria’s crown, for there are 
eighty miles of codbank, and food for all the poor folk in 
the land. That is what Tom will see, and perhaps you 
and I shall see it too. And then we shall not be sorry 
because we cannot get a Gairfowl to stuff, much less find 
gairfowl enough to drive them into stone pens and slaughter 
them, as the old Norsemen did, or drive them on board 
along a plank till the ship was victualled with them, as 
the old English and French rovers used to do, of whom 
dear old Hakluyt tells : but we shall remember what Mr. 
Tennyson says: how 

‘‘ ’The old order changeth, giving place to the new, 

And God fulfils himself in many ways.” 


174 


The Water-Babies 


And now Tom was all agog to start for Shiny Wall ; but 
the petrels said no. They must go first to Allfowlsness, and 
wait there for the great gathering of all the sea-birds, before 
they start for their summer breeding-places far away in the 
Northern Isles ; and there they would be sure to find some 
birds which were going to Shiny Wall: but where Allfowls- 
ness was, he must promise never to tell, lest men should go 
there and shoot the birds, and stuff them, and put them into 
stupid museums, instead of leaving them to play and breed 
and work in Mother Carey’s water-garden, where they ought 
to be. 

So where Allfowlsness is nobody must know; and all that 
is to be said about it is, that Tom waited there many days; 
and as he waited, he saw a very curious sight. On the rabbit 
burrows on the shore there gathered hundreds and hundreds 
of hoodie-crows, such as you see in Cambridgeshire. And 
they made such a noise, that Tom came on shore and went 
up to see what was the matter. 

And there he found them holding their great caucus, 
which they hold every year in the North ; and all their 
stump-orators were speechifying ; and for a tribune, the 
speaker stood on an old sheep’s skull. 

And they cawed and cawed, and boasted of all the clever 
things they had done ; how many lambs’ eyes they had 
picked out, and how many dead bullocks they had eaten, and 
how many young grouse they had swallowed whole, and how 
many grouse-eggs they had flown away with, stuck on the 
point of their bills, which is the hoodie-crow’s particularly 
clever feat, of which he is as proud as a gipsy is of doing the 
hokanybaro ; and what that is, I won’t tell you. 

And at last they brought out the prettiest, neatest young 


175 


The Water-Babies 


lady-crow that ever was seen, and set her in the middle, and 
all began abusing and vilifying, and rating, and bullyragging 
at her, because she had stolen no grouse-eggs, and had actu- 
ally dared to say that she would not steal any. So she was to 
be tried publicly by their laws (for the hoodies always try 
some offenders in their great yearly parliament). And there 
she stood in the middle, in her black gown and gray hood, 
looking as meek and as neat as a Quakeress, and they all 
bawled at her at once — 

And it was in vain that she pleaded — 

That she did not like grouse-eggs ; 

That she could get her living very well without them; 

T hat she was afraid to eat them^ for fear of the gamekeepers ; 

That she had not the heart to eat them, because the grouse 
were such pretty, kind, jolly birds ; 

And a dosr^en reasons more. 

For all the other scaul-crows set upon her, and pecked her 
to death there and then, before Tom could come to help her; 
and then flew away, very proud of what they had done. 

Now, was not this a scandalous transaction? 

But they are true republicans, these hoodies, who do every 
one just what he likes, and make other people do so too ; so 
that, for any freedom of speech, thought, or action, which is 
allowed among them, they might as well be American citi- 
zens of the new school. 

But the fairies took the good crow, and gave her nine new 
sets of feathers running, and turned her at last into the most 
beautiful bird of paradise with a green velvet suit and a long 
tail, and sent her to eat fruit in the Spice Islands, where 
cloves and nutmegs grow. 


176 


The Water-Babies 


And Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid settled her account with the 
wicked hoodies. For, as they flew away, what should they 
find but a nasty dead dog ? — on which they all set to work, 
pecking and gobbling and cawing and quarrelling to their 
hearts’ content. But the moment afterwards, they all threw 
up their bills into the air, and gave one screech ; and then 
turned head over heels backward, and fell down dead, one 
hundred and twenty- three of them at once. For why ? 
The fairy had told the gamekeeper in a dream, to fill the 
dead dog full of strychnine ; and so he did. 

And after a while the birds began to gather at Allfowls- 
ness, in thousands and tens of thousands, blackening all the 
air ; swans and brant geese, harlequins and eiders, harolds and 
garganeys, smews and goosanders, divers and loons, grebes 
and dovekies, auks and razor-bills, gannets and petrels, skuas 
and terns, with gulls beyond all naming or numbering ; and 
they paddled and washed and splashed and combed and 
brushed themselves on the sand, till the shore was white with 
feathers ; and they quacked and clucked and gabbled and 
chattered and screamed and whooped as they talked over 
matters with their friends, and settled where they were to go 
and breed that summer, till you might have heard them ten 
miles off ; and lucky it was for them that there was no one to 
hear them but the old keeper, who lived all alone upon the 
Ness, in a turf hut thatched with heather and fringed round 
with great stones slung across the roof by bent-ropes, lest the 
winter gales should blow the hut right away. But he never 
minded the birds nor hurt them, because they were not in 
season ; indeed, he minded but two things in the whole world, 
and those were, his Bible and his grouse ; for he was as good 
an old Scotchman as ever knit stockings on a winter’s night : 


12 


177 


The Water-Babies 


only, when all the birds were going, he toddled out, and took 
off his cap to them, and wished them a merry journey and a 
safe return ; and then gathered up all the feathers which they 
had left, and cleaned them to sell down south, and make 
feather-beds for stuffy people to lie on. 

Then the petrels asked this bird and that whether they 
would take Tom to Shiny Wall : but one set was going to 
Sutherland, and one to the Shetlands, and one to Norway, 
and one to Spitzbergen, and one to Iceland, and one to Green- 
land : but none would go to Shiny Wall. So the good- 
natured petrels said that they would show him part of the 
way themselves, but they were only going as far as Jan May- 
en’s Land ; and after that he must shift for himself. 

And then all the birds rose up, and streamed away in long 
black lines, north, and north-east, and north-west, across the 
bright blue summer sky ; and their cry was like ten thousand 
packs of hounds, and ten thousand peals of bells. Only the 
puffins stayed behind, and killed the young rabbits, and laid 
their eggs in the rabbit-burrows ; which was rough practice, 
certainly ; but a man must see to his own family. 

And, as Tom and the petrels went north-eastward, it began 
to blow right hard ; for the old gentleman in the gray great- 
coat, who looks after the big copper boiler, in the gulf of 
Mexico, had got behindhand with his work ; so Mother 
Carey had sent an electric message to him for more steam ; 
and now the steam was coming, as much in an hour as ought 
to have come in a week, puffing and roaring and swishing 
and swirling, till you could not see where the sky ended and 
the sea began. But Tom and the petrels never cared, for the 
gale was right abaft, and away they went over the crests of 
the billows, as merry as so many flying-fish. 

178 


The Water-Babies 


And at last they saw an ugly sight — the black side of a 
great ship, water-logged in the trough of the sea. Her 
funnel and her masts were overboard, and swayed and surged 
under her lee ; her decks were swept as clean as a barn floor, 
and there was no living soul on board. 

The petrels flew up to her, and wailed round her ; for they 
were very sorry indeed, and also they expected to find some 
salt pork; and Tom scrambled on board of her and looked 
round, frightened and sad. 

And there, in a little cot, lashed tight under the bulwark, 
lay a baby fast asleep ; the very same baby, Tom saw at once, 
which he had seen in the singing lady’s arms. 

He went up to it, and wanted to wake it ; but behold, 
from under the cot out jumped a little black and tan terrier 
dog, and began barking and snapping at Tom, and would not 
let him touch the cot. 

Tom knew the dog’s teeth could not hurt him : but at 
least it could shove him away, and did ; and he and the dog 
fought and struggled, for he wanted to help the baby, and did 
not want to throw the poor dog overboard : but as they were 
struggling, there came a tall green sea, and walked in over 
the weather side of the ship, and swept them all into the 
waves. 

“Oh, the baby, the baby ! ” screamed Tom ; but the next 
moment he did not scream at all ; for he saw the cot settling 
down through the green water, with the baby, smiling in it, 
fast asleep ; and he saw the fairies come up from below, and 
carry baby and cradle gently down in their soft arms ; and 
then he knew it was all right, and that there would be a new 
water-baby in St. Brandan’s Isle. 

And the poor little dog .? 


179 


The Water-Babies 


Why, after he had kicked and coughed a little, he sneezed 
so hard, that he sneezed himself clean out of his skin, and 
turned into a water-dog, and jumped and danced round Tom, 
and ran over the crests of the waves, and snapped at the jelly- 
fish and the mackerel, and followed Tom the whole way to 
the Other-end-of-Nowhere. 

Then they went on again, till they began to see the peak 
of Jan Mayen’s Land standing up like a white sugar-loaf, two 
miles above the clouds. 

And there they fell in with a whole flock of mollymocks, 
who were feeding on a dead whale. 

“ These are the fellows to show you the way,” said 
Mother Carey’s chickens ; ‘‘ we cannot help you farther 
north. We don’t like to get among the ice pack, for fear it 
should nip our toes : but the mollys dare fly anywhere.” 

So the petrels called to the mollys : but they were so busy 
and greedy, gobbling and pecking and spluttering and fight- 
ing over the blubber, that they did not take the least notice. 

“Come, come,” said the petrels, “you lazy greedy lubbers, 
this young gentleman is going to Mother Carey, and if you 
don’t attend on him, you won’t earn your discharge from her, 
you know.” 

“ Greedy we are,” says a great fat old molly, “but lazy we 
ain’t ; and, as for lubbers, we ’re no more lubbers than you. 
Let ’s have a look at the lad.” 

And he flapped right into Tom’s face, and stared at him in 
the most impudent way (for the mollys are audacious fellows, 
as all whalers know), and then asked him where he hailed 
from, and what land he sighted last. 

And, when Tom told him, he seemed pleased, and said he 
was a good plucked one to have got so far. 

i8o 


The Water-Babies 


“ Come along, lads,” he said to the rest, and give this 
little chap a cast over the pack, for Mother Carey’s sake. 
We’ve eaten blubber enough for to-day, and we’ll e’en work 
out a bit of our time by helping the lad.” 

So the mollys took Tom up on their backs, and flew off 
with him, laughing and joking — and oh, how they did smell 
of train oil ! 

“ Who are you, you jolly birds ? ” asked Tom. 

“We are the spirits of the old Greenland skippers (as 
every sailor knows), who hunted here, right whales and horse- 
whales, full hundreds of years agone. But, because we were 
saucy and greedy, we were all turned into mollys, to eat whale’s 
blubber all our days. But lubbers we are none, and could 
sail a ship now against any man in the North seas, though we 
don’t hold with this new-fangled steam. And it ’s a shame of 
those black imps of petrels to call us so ; but because they ’re 
her grace’s pets, they think they may say anything they like.” 

“ And who are you ? ” asked Tom of him, for he saw that 
he was the king of all the birds. 

“ My name is Hendrick Hudson, and a right good skip- 
per was I ; and my name will last to the world’s end, in spite 
of all the wrong I did. For I discovered Hudson River, and 
I named Hudson’s Bay ; and many have come in my wake 
that dared not have shown me the way. But I was a hard 
man in my time, that ’s truth, and stole the poor Indians off 
the coast of Maine, and sold them for slaves down in Virginia ; 
and at last I was so cruel to my sailors, here in these very 
seas, that they set me adrift in an open boat, and I never was 
heard of more. So now I ’m the king of all mollys, till I ’ve 
worked out my time.” 

And now they came to the edge of the pack, and beyond 


The Water-Babies 


it they could see Shiny Wall looming, through mist, and 
snow, and storm. But the pack rolled horribly upon the 
swell, and the ice giants fought and roared, and leapt upon 
each other’s backs, and ground each other to powder, so that 
Tom was afraid to venture among them, lest he should be 
ground to powder too. And he was the more afraid, when 
he saw lying among the ice pack the wrecks of many a gal- 
lant ship ; some with masts and yards all standing, some with 
the seamen frozen fast on board. Alas, alas, for them ! 
They were all true English hearts ; and they came to their 
end like good knights-errant, in searching for the white gate 
that never was opened yet. 

But the good mollys took Tom and his dog up, and flew 
with them safe over the pack and the roaring ice giants, and 
set them down at the foot of Shiny Wall. 

“ And where is the gate ? ” asked Tom. 

“ There is no gate,” said the mollys. 

“No gate ? ” cried Tom, aghast. 

“ None; never a crack of one, and that’s the whole of the 
secret, as better fellows, lad, than you have found to their 
cost ; and if there had been, they ’d have killed by now every 
right whale that swims the sea.” 

“ What am I to do, then ? ” 

“ Dive under the floe, to be sure, if you have pluck.” 

“ I ’ve not come so far to turn now,” said Tom ; “ so 
here goes for a header.” 

“ A lucky voyage to you, lad,” said the mollys ; “ we 
knew you were one of the right sort. So good-bye.” 

“ Why don’t you come too ? ” asked Tom. 

But the mollys only wailed sadly, “We can’t go yet, we 
can’t go yet,” and flew away over the pack. 


182 


The Water-Babies 


So Tom dived under the great white gate which never was 
opened yet, and went on in black darkness, at the bottom of 
the sea, for seven days and seven nights. And yet he was not 
a bit frightened. Why should he be ? He was a brave Eng- 
lish lad, whose business is to go out and see all the world. 

And at last he saw the light, and clear clear water over- 
head ; and up he came a thousand fathoms, among clouds of 
sea-moths, which fluttered round his head. There were 
moths with pink heads and wings and opal bodies, that flap- 
ped about slowly ; moths with brown wings that flapped 
about quickly; yellow shrimps that hopped and skipped most 
quickly of all ; and jellies of all the colours in the world, 
that neither hopped nor skipped, but only dawdled and 
yawned, and would not get out of his way. The dog snapped 
at them till his jaws were tired; but Tom hardly minded 
them at all, he was so eager to get to the top of the water, 
and see the pool where the good whales go. 

And a very large pool it was, miles and miles across, though 
the air was so clear that the ice cliffs on the opposite side 
looked as if they were close at hand. All round it the ice 
cliffs rose, in walls and spires and battlements, and caves and 
bridges, and stories and galleries, in which the ice-fairies live, 
and drive away the storms and clouds, that Mother Carey’s 
pool may lie calm from year’s end to year’s end. And the 
sun acted policeman, and walked round outside every day, 
peeping just over the top of the ice wall, to see that all went 
right ; and now and then he played conjuring tricks, or had 
an exhibition of fireworks, to amuse the ice-fairies. For he 
would make himself into four or five suns at once, or paint 
the sky with rings and crosses and crescents of white fire, 
and stick himself in the middle of them, and wink at the 

183 


The Water-Babies 


fairies ; and I daresay they were very much amused ; for any- 
thing ’s fun in the country. 

And there the good whales lay, the happy sleepy beasts, 
upon the still oily sea. They were all right whales, you 
must know, and finners, and razor-backs, and bottle-noses, 
and spotted sea-unicorns with long ivory horns. But the 
sperm whales are such raging, ramping, roaring, rumbustious 
fellows, that, if Mother Carey let them in, there would be 
no more peace in Peacepool. So she packs them away in a 
great pond by themselves at the South Pole, two hundred 
and sixty-three miles south-south-east of Mount Erebus, 
the great volcano in the ice; and there they butt each other 
with their ugly noses, day and night from year’s end to year’s 
end. 

But here there were only good quiet beasts, lying about 
like the black hulls of sloops, and blowing every now and 
then jets of white steam, or sculling round with their huge 
mouths open, for the sea-moths to swim down their throats. 
There were no threshers there to thresh their poor old backs^ 
or sword-fish to stab their stomachs, or saw-fish to rip them 
up, or ice-sharks to bite lumps out of their sides, or whalers 
to harpoon and lance them. They were quite safe and happy 
there ; and all they had to do was to wait quietly in Peace- 
pool, till Mother Carey sent for them to make them out of 
old beasts into new. 

Tom swam up to the nearest whale and asked the way to 
Mother Carey. 

“ There she sits in the middle,” said the whale. 

Tom looked ; but he could see nothing in the middle of 
the pool, but one peaked iceberg : and he said so. 

“ That ’s Mother Carey,” said the whale, “ as you will find 

184 


The Water-Babies 

when you get to her. There she sits making old beasts into 
new all the year round.*’ 

“How does she do that?” 

“ That *s her concern, not mine,” said the old whale ; and 
yawned so wide (for he was very large) that there swam into 
his mouth 943 sea-moths, 13,846 jelly-fish no bigger than 
pin’s heads, a string of salpas nine yards long, and forty-three 
little ice-crabs, who gave each other a parting pinch all 
round, tucked their legs under their stomachs, and determined 
to die decently, like Julius Caesar. 

“ I suppose,” said Tom, “ she cuts up a great whale like 
you into a whole shoal of porpoises ? ” 

At which the old whale laughed so violently that he 
coughed up all the creatures ; who swam away again very 
thankful at having escaped out of that terrible whalebone net 
of his, from which bourne no traveller returns; and Tom 
went on to the iceberg, wondering. 

And, when he came near it, it took the form of the 
grandest old lady he had ever seen — a white marble lady, 
sitting on a white marble throne. And from the foot of the 
throne there swum away, out and out into the sea, millions 
of new-born creatures, of more shapes and colours than man 
ever dreamed. And they were Mother Carey’s children, 
whom she makes out of the sea-water all day long. 

He expected, of course — like some grown people who 
ought to know better — to find her snipping, piecing, fitting, 
stitching, cobbling, basting, filing, planing, hammering, turn- 
ing, polishing, moulding, measuring, chiselling, clipping, and 
so forth, as men do when they go to work to make anything. 

But, instead of that, she sat quite still with her chin upon 
her hand, looking down into the sea with two great grand 

185 


The Water-Babies 


blue eyes, as blue as the sea itself. Her hair was as white as 
the snow — for she was very very old — in fact, as old as 
anything which you are likely to come across, except the 
difference between right and wrong. 

And, when she saw Tom, she looked at him very kindly. 

“ What do you want, my little man It is long since I 
have seen a water-baby here.” 

Tom told her his errand, and asked the way to the Other- 
end-of-No where. 

“You ought to know yourself, for you have been there 
already.” 

“ Have I, ma’am? I’m sure I forget all about it.” 

“ Then look at me.” 

And, as Tom looked into her great blue eyes, he recol- 
lected the way perfectly. 

Now, was not that strange ? 

“ Thank you, ma’am,” said Tom. “Then I won’t trouble 
your ladyship any more ; I hear you are very busy.” 

“ I am never more busy than I am now,” she said, with- 
out stirring a finger. 

“ I heard, ma’am, that you were always making new 
beasts out of old.” 

“ So people fancy. But I am not going to trouble myself 
to make things, my little dear. I sit here and make them 
make themselves.” 

“You are a clever fairy, indeed,” thought Tom. And he 
was quite right. 

That is a grand trick of good old Mother Carey’s, and a 
grand answer, which she has had occasion to make several 
times to impertinent people. 

There was once, for instance, a fairy who was so clever 


i86 


The Water-Babies 


that she found out how to make butterflies. I don’t mean 
sham ones ; no : but real live ones, which would fly, and eat, 
and lay eggs, and do everything that they ought ; and she 
was so proud of her skill that she went flying straight off to 
the North Pole, to boast to Mother Carey how she could 
make butterflies. 

But Mother Carey laughed. 

“ Know, silly child,” she said, “ that any one can make 
things, if they will take time and trouble enough: but it 
is not every one who, like me, can make things make 
themselves.” 

But people do not yet believe that Mother Carey is as 
clever as all that comes to ; and they will not till they, too, 
go the journey to the Other-end-of-Nowhere. 

“And now, my pretty little man,” said Mother Carey, 
“you are sure you know the way to the Other-end-of- 
Nowhere ? ” 

Tom thought ; and behold, he had forgotten it utterly. 

“ That is because you took your eyes off me.” 

Tom looked at her again, and recollected; and then 
looked away, and forgot in an instant. 

“ But what am I to do, ma’am ? For I can’t keep looking 
at you when I am somewhere else.” 

“You must do without me, as most people have to do, for 
nine hundred and ninety-nine thousandths of their lives; and 
look at the dog instead ; for he knows the way well enough, 
and will not forget it. Besides, you may meet some very 
queer-tempered people there, who will not let you pass with- 
out this passport of mine, which you must hang round your 
neck and take care of ; and, of course, as the dog will always 
go behind you, you must go the whole way backward.” 

187 


The Water-Babies 


“Backward!” cried Tom. “Then I shall not be able to 
see my way.” 

“ On the contrary, if you look forward, you will not see a 
step before you, and be certain to go wrong ; but, if you look 
behind you, and watch carefully whatever you have passed, 
and especially keep your eye on the dog, who goes by instinct, 
and therefore can’t go wrong, then you will know what is 
coming next, as plainly as if you saw it in a looking-glass.” 

Tom was very much astonished : but he obeyed her, for 
he had learnt always to believe what the fairies told him. 

“So it is, my dear child,” said Mother Carey; “and I will 
tell you a story, which will show you that I am perfectly 
right, as it is my custom to be. 

“ Once on a time, there were two brothers. One was 
called Prometheus, because he always looked before him, and 
boasted that he was wise beforehand. The other was called 
Epimetheus, because he always looked behind him, and did 
not boast at all ; but said humbly, like the Irishman, that he 
had sooner prophesy after the event. 

Well, Prometheus was a very clever fellow, of course, 
and invented all sorts of wonderful things. But, unfortu- 
nately, when they were set to work, to work was just what 
they would not do ; wherefore very little has come of them, 
and very little is left of them ; and now nobody knows what 
they were, save a few archasological old gentlemen who 
scratch in queer corners, and find little there save Ptinum 
Furem, Blaptem Mortisagam, Acarum Horridum, and Tineam 
Laciniarum. 

“ But Epimetheus was a very slow fellow, certainly, and 
went among men for a clod, and a muff, and a milksop, and 
a slowcoach, and a bloke, and a boodle, and so forth. And 


i88 


The Water-Babies 


very little he did, for many years : but what he did, he never 
had to do over again. 

“And what happened at last? There came to the two 
brothers the most beautiful creature that ever was seen. Pan- 
dora by name, which means. All the gifts of the Gods. But 
because she had a strange box in her hand, this fanciful, fore- 
casting, suspicious, prudential, theoretical, deductive, prophesy- 
ing Prometheus, who was always settling what was going to 
happen, would have nothing to do with pretty Pandora and 
her box. 

“ But Epimetheus took her and it, as he took everything 
that came ; and married her for better for worse, as every man 
ought, whenever he has even the chance of a good wife. 
And they opened the box between them, of course, to see 
what was inside : for, else, of what possible use could it have 
been to them ? 

“ And out flew all the ills which flesh is heir to ; all the 
children of the four great bogies. Self-will, Ignorance, Fear, 
and Dirt — for instance: 


Measles, 

Monks, 

Scarlatina, 

Idols, 

Hooping-coughs, 

Popes, 

Wars, 

Peacemongers, 

And, worst of all. Naughty 


Famines, 

^acks. 

Unpaid bills 
Tight stays. 
Potatoes, 

Bad Wine, 
Despots, 
Demagogues, 
Boys and Girls. 


But one thing remained at the bottom of the box, and that 
was, Hope. 


189 


The Water-Babies 


“ So Epimetheus got a great deal of trouble, as most men 
do in this world : but he got the three best things in the 
world into the bargain — a good wife, and experience, and 
hope : while Prometheus had just as much trouble, and a 
great deal more (as you will hear), of his own making ; with 
nothing beside, save fancies spun out of his own brain, as a 
spider spins her web out of her stomach. 

“ And Prometheus kept on looking before him so far 
ahead, that as he was running about with a box of lucifers 
(which were the only useful things he ever invented, and do 
as much harm as good), he trod on his own nose, and 
tumbled down (as most deductive philosophers do), whereby 
he set the Thames on fire; and they have hardly put it out 
again yet. So he had to be chained to the top of a moun- 
tain, with a vulture by him to give him a peck whenever he 
stirred, lest he should turn the whole world upside down with 
his prophecies and his theories. 

“ But stupid old Epimetheus went working and grubbing 
on, with the help of his wife Pandora, always looking behind 
him to see what had happened, till he really learnt to know 
now and then what would happen next ; and understood so 
well which side his bread was buttered, and which way the 
cat jumped, that he began to make things which would work, 
and go on working, too ; to till and drain the ground, and to 
make looms, and ships, and railroads, and steam ploughs, and 
electric telegraphs, and all the things which you see in the 
Great Exhibition ; and to foretell famine, and bad weather, 
and the price of stocks and (what is hardest of all) the next 
vagary of the great idol Whirligig, which some call Public 
Opinion; till at last he grew as rich as a Jew, and as fat as a 
farmer, and people thought twice before they meddled with 


90 


The Water-Babies 


him, but only once before they asked him to help them ; for, 
because he earned his money well, he could afford to spend it 
well likewise. 

‘‘ And his children are the men of science, who get good 
lasting work done in the world ; but the children of Pro- 
metheus are the fanatics, and the theorists, and the bigots, and 
the bores, and the noisy windy people, who go telling silly 
folk what will happen, instead of looking to see what has 
happened already.” 

Now, was not Mother Carey’s a wonderful story? And, I 
am happy to say, Tom believed it every word. 

For so it happened to Tom likewise. He was very sorely 
tried ; for though, by keeping the dog to heels (or rather to 
toes, for he had to walk backward), he could see pretty well 
which way the dog was hunting, yet it was much slower 
work to go backwards than to go forwards. But, what was 
more trying still, no sooner had he got out of Peacepool, than 
there came running to him all the conjurors, fortune-tellers, 
astrologers, prophesiers, projectors, prestidigitators, as many as 
were in those parts (and there are too many of them every- 
where), Old Mother Shipton on her broomstick, with Merlin, 
Thomas the Rhymer, Gerbertus, Rabanus Maurus, Nostra- 
damus, Zadkiel, Raphael, Moore, Old Nixon, and a good 
many in black coats and white ties who might have known 
better, considering in what century they were born, all bawl- 
ing and screaming at him, “ Look a-head, only look a-head ; 
and we will show you what man never saw before, and right 
away to the end of the world! ” 

But I am proud to say that, though Tom had not been to 
Cambridge — for, if he had, he would have certainly been 
senior wrangler — he was such a little dogged, hard, gnarly. 


The Water-Babies 


foursquare brick of an English boy, that he never turned his 
head round once all the way from Peacepool to the Other- 
end-of-No where : but kept his eye on the dog, and let him 
pick out the scent, hot or cold, straight or crooked, wet or 
dry, up hill or down dale ; by which means he never made a 
single mistake, and saw all the wonderful and hitherto by-no- 
mortal-man-imagined things, which it is my duty to relate to 
you in the next chapter. 


192 



Chapter F III and Last 


‘‘ Come to me^ O ye children / 

For 1 hear you at your play ; 

And the questions that perplexed me 
Have vanished quite away. 

“ Ye open the Eastern windows.^ 

Lhat look towards the sun^ 

JFhere thoughts are singing swallows^ 
And the brooks of morning run. 


“ For what are all our contrivings 
And the wisdom of our books.. 
When compared with your caresses., 
And the gladness of your looks? 

“ Ye are better than all the ballads 
That ever were sung or said; 
For ye are living poems. 

And all the rest are dead I’ 

Longfelloit. 


H ere begins the never-to-be-too-much-studied 
account of the nine-hundred-and-ninety-ninth 
part of the wonderful things which Tom saw 
on his journey to the Other-end-of-Nowhere ; 
which all good little children are requested to read ; that, if 
ever they get to the Other-end-of-Nowhere, as they may very 
probably do, they may not burst out laughing, or try to 
run away, or do any other silly vulgar thing which may 
offend Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid. 


13 


193 



The Water-Babies 


Now, as soon as Tom had left Peacepool, he came to the 
white lap of the great sea-mother, ten thousand fathoms 
deep ; where she makes world-pap all day long, for the 
steam-giants to knead, and the fire-giants to bake, till it has 
risen and hardened into mountain-loaves and island-cakes. 

And there Tom was very near being kneaded up in the 
world-pap, and turned into a fossil water-baby ; which would 
have astonished the Geological Society of New Zealand some 
hundreds of thousands of years hence. 

For, as he walked along in the silence of the sea-twilight, 
on the soft white ocean floor, he was aware of a hissing, and 
a roaring, and a thumping, and a pumping, as of all the 
steam-engines in the world at once. And, when he came 
near, the water grew boiling-hot ; not that that hurt him in 
the least : but it also grew as foul as gruel ; and every 
moment he stumbled over dead shells, and fish, and sharks, 
and seals, and whales, which had been killed by the hot 
water. 

And at last he came to the great sea-serpent himself, lying 
dead at the bottom ; and as he was too thick to scramble over, 
Tom had to walk round him three-quarters of a mile and 
more, which put him out of his path sadly ; and, when he 
had got round, he came to the place called Stop. And there 
he stopped, and just in time. 

For he was on the edge of a vast hole in the bottom of the 
sea, up which was rushing and roaring clear steam enough to 
work all the engines in the world at once ; so clear, indeed, 
that it was quite light at moments ; and Tom could see 
almost up to the top of the water above, and down below 
into the pit for nobody knows how far. 

But, as soon as he bent his head over the edge, he got such 


94 


The Water-Babies 


a rap on the nose from pebbles, that he jumped back again ; 
for the steam, as it rushed up, rasped away the sides of the 
hole, and hurled it up into the sea in a shower of mud and 
gravel and ashes; and then it spread all around, and sank 
again, and covered in the dead fish so fast, that before Tom 
had stood there five minutes he was buried in silt up to his 
ankles, and began to be afraid that he should have been 
buried alive. 

And perhaps he would have been, but that while he was 
thinking, the whole piece of ground on which he stood was 
torn off and blown upwards, and away flew Tom a mile up 
through the sea, wondering what was coming next. 

At last he stopped — thump ! and found himself tight in 
the legs of the most wonderful bogy which he had ever seen. 

It had I don’t know how many wings, as big as the sails 
of a windmill, and spread out in a ring like them ; and with 
them it hovered over the steam which rushed up, as a ball 
hovers over the top of a fountain. And for every wing above 
it had a leg below, with a claw like a comb at the tip ; and a 
nostril at the root ; and in the middle it had no stomach and 
one eye ; and as for its mouth, that was all on one side, as 
the madreporiform tubercle in a star-fish is. Well, it was a 
very strange beast ; but no stranger than some dozens which 
you may see. 

“What do you want here,” it cried quite peevishly, “get- 
ting in my way?” and it tried to drop Tom; but beheld 
on tight to its claws, thinking himself safer where he was. 

So Tom told him who he was, and what his errand was. 
And the thing winked its one eye, and sneered : 

“ I am too old to be taken in in that way. You are come 
after gold — I know you are.” 


The Water-Babies 


“Gold! What is gold?” And really Tom did not 
know; but the suspicious old bogy would not believe him. 

But after a while Tom began to understand a little. For, 
as the vapours came up out of the hole, the bogy smelt them 
with his nostrils, and combed them and sorted them with his 
combs ; and then, when they steamed up through them 
against his wings, they were changed into showers and 
streams of metal. From one wing fell gold-dust, and from 
another silver, and from another copper, and from another 
tin, and from another lead, and so on, and sank into the soft 
mud, into veins and cracks, and hardened there. Whereby 
it comes to pass that the rocks are full of metal. 

But, all of a sudden, somebody shut off the steam below, 
and the hole was left empty in an instant : and then down 
rushed the water into the hole, in such a whirlpool that the 
bogy spun round and round as fast as a teetotum. But that 
was all in his day’s work, like a fair fall with the hounds ; so 
all he did was to say to Tom — 

“ Now is your time, youngster, to get down, if you are in 
earnest, which I don’t believe.” 

“You ’ll soon see,” said Tom ; and away he went, as bold 
as Baron Munchausen, and shot down the rushing cataract 
like a salmon at Ballisodare. 

And, when he got to the bottom, he swam till he was 
washed on shore safe upon the Other-end-of-Nowhere ; and 
he found it, to his surprise, as most other people do, much 
more like This-End-of-Somewhere than he had been in the 
habit of expecting. 

And first he went through Waste-paper-land, where all the 
stupid books lie in heaps, up hill and down dale, like leaves 
in a winter wood ; and there he saw people digging and 

196 


The Water-Babies 


grubbing among them, to make worse books out of bad ones, 
and thrashing chaff to save the dust of it ; and a very good 
trade they drove thereby, especially among children. 

Then he went by the sea of slops, to the mountain of 
messes, and the territory of tuck, where the ground was very 
sticky, for it was all made of bad toffee (not Everton toffee, 
of course), and full of deep cracks and holes choked with 
wind-fallen fruit, and green gooseberries, and sloes, and crabs, 
and whinberries, and hips and haws, and all the nasty things 
which little children will eat, if they can get them. But the 
fairies hide them out of the way in that country as fast as they 
can, and very hard work they have, and of very little use it is. 
For as fast as they hide away the old trash, foolish and wicked 
people make fresh trash full of lime and poisonous paints, and 
actually go and steal receipts out of old Madame Sciences 
big book to invent poisons for little children, and sell them 
at wakes and fairs and tuck-shops. Very well. Let them 
go on. Dr. Letheby and Dr. Hassall cannot catch them, 
though they are setting traps for them all day long. But the 
Fairy with the birch-rod will catch them all in time, and 
make them begin at one corner of their shops, and eat their 
way out at the other : by which time they will have got 
such stomach-aches as will cure them of poisoning little 
children. 

Next he saw all the little people in the world, writing all 
the little books in the world, about all the other little people 
in the world ; probably because they had no great people to 
write about : and if the names of the books were not Squeeky, 
nor the Pump-lighter, nor the Narrow Narrow World, nor 
the Hills of the Chattermuch, nor the Children’s Twadde- 
day, why then they were something else. And all the rest 


97 


The Water-Babies 


of the little people in the world read the books, and thought 
themselves each as good as the President ; and perhaps they 
were right, for every one knows his own business best. But 
Tom thought he would sooner have a jolly good fairy tale, 
about Jack the Giant-killer or Beauty and the Beast, which 
taught him something that he did n’t know already. 

And next he came to the centre of Creation (the hub, 
they call it there), which lies in latitude 42-21° south, and 
longitude 108-56° east. 

And there he found all the wise people instructing man- 
kind in the science of spirit-rapping, while their house was 
burning over their heads : and when Tom told them of the 
fire, they held an indignation meeting forthwith, and unani- 
mously determined to hang Tom’s dog for coming into their 
country with gunpowder in his mouth. Tom could n’t help 
saying that though they did fancy they had carried all the 
wit away with them out of Lincolnshire two hundred years 
ago, yet if they had had one such Lincolnshire nobleman 
among them as good old Lord Yarborough, he would have 
called for the fire-engines before he hanged other people’s 
dogs. But it was of no use, and the dog was hanged: and 
Tom could n’t even have his carcase ; for they had abolished 
the have-his-carcase act in that country, for fear lest when 
rogues fell out, honest men should come by their own. And 
so they would have succeeded perfectly, as they always do, 
only that (as they also always do they failed in one little par- 
ticular, viz. that the dog would not die, being a water-dog, 
but bit their fingers so abominably that they were forced to 
let him go, and Tom likewise, as British subjects. Whereon 
they recommenced rapping for the spirits of their fathers ; 
and very much astonished the poor old spirits were when 

198 


The Water-Babies 


they came, and saw how, according to the laws of Mrs. Be- 
donebyasyoudid, their descendants had weakened their con- 
stitution by hard living. 

Then came Tom to the Island of Polupragmosyne (which 
some call Rogues’ Harbour ; but they are wrong ; for that is 
in the middle of Bramshill Bushes, and the county police 
have cleared it out long ago). There every one knows his 
neighbour’s business better than his own ; and a very noisy 
place it is, as might be expected, considering that all the 
inhabitants are ex officio on the wrong side of the house in the 
“Parliament of Man, and the Federation of the World;” 
and are always making wry mouths, and crying that the 
fairies’ grapes were sour. 

There Tom saw ploughs drawing horses, nails driving 
hammers, birds’ nests taking boys, books making authors, 
bulls keeping china-shops, monkeys shaving cats, dead dogs 
drilling live lions, blind brigadiers shelfed as principals of 
colleges, play-actors not in the least shelfed as popular preach- 
ers ; and, in short, every one set to do something which he 
had not learnt, because in what he had learnt, or pretended 
to learn, he had failed. 

There stands the Pantheon of the Great Unsuccessful, from 
the builders of the Tower of Babel to those of the Trafalgar 
Fountains ; in which politicians lecture on the constitutions 
which ought to have marched, conspirators on the revolu- 
tions which ought to have succeeded, economists on the 
schemes which ought to have made every one’s fortune, and 
projectors on the discoveries which ought to have set the 
Thames onfire. There cobblers lecture on orthopedy (whatso- 
ever that may be) because they cannot sell their shoes ; and 
poets on .Esthetics (whatsoever that may be) because they can- 


199 


The Water-Babies 


not sell their poetry. There philosophers demonstrate that 
England would be the freest and richest country in the world, 
if she would only turn Papist again ; penny-a-liners abuse the 
Times, because they have not wit enough to get on its staff; 
and young ladies walk about with lockets of Charles the 
First’s hair (or of somebody else’s, when the Jews’ genuine 
stock is used up), inscribed with the neat and appropriate 
legend — which indeed is popular through all that land, and 
which, I hope, you will learn to translate in due time and to 
perpend likewise : — 

« Victrix causa diis placuit^ sed victa puellis*' 

When he got into the middle of the town, they all set on 
him at once, to show him his way ; or rather, to show him 
that he did not know his way ; for as for asking him what 
way he wanted to go, no one ever thought of that. 

But one pulled him hither, and another poked him thither, 
and a third cried — 

‘‘You mustn’t go west, I tell you; it is destruction to go 
west.” 

“ But I am not going west, as you may see,” said Tom. 

And another, “ The east lies here, my dear ; I assure you 
this is the east.” 

“ But I don’t want to go east,” said Tom. 

“Well, then, at all events, whichever way you are going, 
you are going wrong,” cried they all with one voice — which 
was the only thing which they ever agreed about; and all 
pointed at once to all the thirty-and-two points of the com- 
pass, till Tom thought all the sign-posts in England had got 
together, and fallen fighting. 

And whether he would have ever escaped out of the town, 


200 


The Water-Babies 


it is hard to say, if the dog had not taken it into his head that 
they were going to pull his master in pieces, and tackled 
them so sharply about the gastrocnemius muscle, that he gave 
them some business of their own to think of at last ; and 
while they were rubbing their bitten calves, Tom and the dog 
got safe away. 

On the borders of that island he found Gotham, where the 
wise men live; the same who dragged the pond because the 
moon had fallen into it, and planted a hedge round the 
cuckoo, to keep spring all the year. And he found them 
bricking up the town gate, because it was so wide that little 
folks could not get through. And when he asked why, they 
told him they were expanding their liturgy. So he went on ; 
for it was no business of his : only he could not help saying 
that in his country, if the kitten could not get in at the same 
hole as the cat, she might stay outside and mew. 

But he saw the end of such fellows, when he came to the 
island of the Golden Asses, where nothing but thistles grow. 
For there they were all turned into mokes with ears a yard 
long, for meddling with matters which they do not under- 
stand, as Lucius did in the story. And like him, mokes they 
must remain, till, by the laws of development, the thistles 
develop into roses. Till then, they must comfort themselves 
with the thought, that the longer their ears are, the thicker 
their hides ; and so a good beating don’t hurt them. 

Then came Tom to the great land of Hearsay, in which 
are no less than thirty and odd kings, beside half a dozen 
Republics, and perhaps more by next mail. 

And there he fell in with a deep, dark, deadly, and destruc- 
tive war, waged by the princes and potentates of those parts, 
both spiritual and temporal, against what do you think? 


'I 


201 


The Water-Babies 


One thing I am sure of. That unless I told you, you would 
never know ; nor how they waged that war either ; for all 
their strategy and art military consisted in the safe and easy 
process of stopping their ears and screaming, “ Oh, don’t tell 
us ! ” and then running away. 

So when Tom came into that land, he found them all, 
high and low, man, woman, and child, running for their 
lives day and night continually, and entreating not to be told 
they did n’t know what : only the land being an island, and 
they having a dislike to the water (being a musty lot for the 
most part), they ran round and round the shore for ever, 
which (as the island was exactly of the same circumference as 
the planet on which we have the honour of living) was hard 
work, especially to those who had business to look after. 
But before them, as bandmaster and fugleman, ran a gentle- 
man shearing a pig ; the melodious strains of which animal 
led them for ever, if not to conquest, still to flight; and kept 
up their spirits mightily with the thought that they would 
at least have the pig’s wool for their pains. 

And running after them, day and night, came such a poor, 
lean, seedy, hard-worked old giant, as ought to have been 
cockered up, and had a good dinner given him, and a good 
wife found him, and been set to play with little children; 
and then he would have been a very presentable old fellow 
after all ; for he had a heart, though it was considerably over- 
grown with brains. 

He was made up principally of fish bones and parchment, 
put together with wire and Canada balsam ; and smelt strongly 
of spirits, though he never drank anything but water : but 
spirits he used somehow, there was no denying. He had a 
great pair of spectacles on his nose, and a butterfly-net in one 


202 




The Water-Babies 


hand, and a geological hammer in the other ; and was hung 
all over with pockets, full of collecting boxes, bottles, micro- 
scopes, telescopes, barometers, ordnance maps, scalpels, forceps, 
photographic apparatus, and all other tackle for finding out 
everything about everything, and a little more too. And, 
most strange of all, he was running not forwards but back- 
wards, as fast as he could. 

Away all the good folks ran from him, except Tom, who 
stood his ground and dodged between his legs ; and the giant, 
when he had passed him, looked down, and cried, as if he 
was quite pleased and comforted, — 

“ What .? who are you ? And you actually don’t run away, 
like all the rest ” But he had to take his spectacles off, 
Tom remarked, in order to see him plainly. 

Tom told him who he was; and the giant pulled out a 
bottle and a cork instantly, to collect him with. 

But Tom was too sharp for that, and dodged between his 
legs and in front of him ; and then the giant could not see 
him at all. 

“No, no, no!” said Tom, “I’ve not been round the 
world, and through the world, and up to Mother Carey’s 
haven, beside being caught in a net and called a Holothurian 
and a Cephalopod, to be bottled up by any old giant like 
you.” 

And when the giant understood what a great traveller Tom 
had been, he made a truce with him at once, and would have 
kept him there to this day to pick his brains, so delighted 
was he at finding any one to tell him what he did not know 
before. 

“ Ah, you lucky little dog 1 ” said he at last, quite simply 
— for he was the simplest, pleasantest, honestest, kindliest old 


203 


The Water-Babies 


Dominie Sampson of a giant that ever turned the world 
upside down without intending it — “ ah, you lucky little 
dog ! If I had only been where you have been, to see what 
you have seen ! ’’ 

“ Well,” said Tom, “ if you want to do that, you had best 
put your head under water for a few hours, as I did, and turn 
into a water-baby, or some other baby and then you might 
have a chance.” 

“ Turn into a baby, eh ? If I could do that, and know 
what was happening to me for but one hour, I should know 
everything then, and be at rest. But I can’t ; I can’t be a 
little child again ; and I suppose if I could, it would be no 
use, because then I should then know nothing about what 
was happening to me. Ah, you lucky little dog ! ” said the 
poor old giant. 

“ But why do you run after all these poor people ? ” said 
Tom, who liked the giant very much. 

“ My dear, it ’s they that have been running after me, 
father and son, for hundreds and hundreds of years, throwing 
stones at me till they have knocked off my spectacles fifty 
times, and calling me a malignant and a turbaned Turk, who 
beat a Venetian and traduced the State — goodness only 
knows what they mean, for I never read poetry — and hunt- 
ing me round and round — though catch me they can’t, for 
every time I go over the same ground, I go the faster, and 
grow the bigger. While all I want is to be friends with 
them, and to tell them something to their advantage, like Mr. 
Joseph Ady: only somehow they are so strangely afraid of 
hearing it. But, I suppose I am not a man of the world, 
and have no tact.” 

“ But why don’t you turn round and tell them so ? ” 


204 


The Water-Babies 


“Because I can’t. You see, I am one of the sons of 
Epimetheus, and must go backwards, if I am to go at all.” 

“ But why don’t you stop, and let them come up to you ” 

“ Why, my dear, only think. If I did, all the butterflies 
and cockyolybirds would fly past me, and then I should catch 
no more new species, and should grow rusty and mouldy, and 
die. And I don’t intend to do that, my dear ; for I have a 
destiny before me, they say : though what it is I don’t know, 
and don’t care.” 

“ Don’t care.? ” said Tom. 

“ No. Do the duty which lies nearest you, and catch the 
first beetle you come across, is my motto ; and I have thriven 
by it for some hundred years. Now I must go on. Dear 
me, while I have been talking to you, at least nine new 
species have escaped me.” 

And on went the giant, behind before, like a bull in a 
china-shop, till he ran into the steeple of the great idol 
temple (for they are all idolaters in those parts, of course, else 
they would never be afraid of giants), and knocked the upper 
half clean off, hurting himself horribly about the small of the 
back. 

But little he cared ; for as soon as the ruins of the steeple 
were well between his legs, he poked and peered among the 
falling stones, and shifted his spectacles, and pulled out his 
pocket-magnifier, and cried — 

“ An entirely new Oniscus, and three obscure Podurellae ! 
Besides a moth which M. le Roi des Papillons (though he, 
like all Frenchmen, is given to hasty inductions) says is con- 
fined to the limits of the Glacial Drift. This is most 
important ! ” 

And down he sat on the nave of the temple (not being a 


205 


The Water-Babies 


man of the world) to examine his Podurellas. Whereon (as 
was to be expected) the roof caved in bodily, smashing the 
idols, and sending the priests flying out of doors and windows, 
like rabbits out of a burrow when a ferret goes in. 

But he never heeded ; for out of the dust flew a bat, and 
the giant had him in a moment. 

“ Dear me ! This is even more important ! Here is a 
cognate species to that which Macgilliwaukie Brown insists is 
confined to the Buddhist temples of Little Thibet ; and now 
when I look at it, it may be only a variety produced by 
difference of climate ! ” 

And having bagged his bat, up he got, and on he went ; 
while all the people ran, being in none the better humour for 
having their temple smashed for the sake of three obscure 
species of Podurella, and a Buddhist bat. 

“Well,” thought Tom, “this is a very pretty quarrel, with 
a good deal to be said on both sides. But it is no business 
of mine.” 

And no more it was, because he was a water-baby, and had 
the original sow by the right ear ; which you will never have, 
unless you be a baby, whether of the water, the land, or the 
air, matters not, provided you can only keep on continually 
being a baby. 

So the giant ran round after the people, and the people ran 
round after the giant, and they are running unto this day for 
aught I know, or do not know ; and will run till either he, 
or they, or both, turn into little children. And then, as 
Shakespeare says (and therefore it must be true) — 

“ "Jack shall have Gill 
Nought shall go ill 

Tlhe man shall have his mare again^ and all go well.** 

206 


The Water-Babies 


Then Tom came to a very famous island, which was 
called, in the days of the great traveller Captain Gulliver, 
the Isle of Laputa. But Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid has named 
it over again, the Isle of Tomtoddies, all heads and no 
bodies. 

And when Tom came near it, he heard such a grumbling 
and grunting and growling and wailing^ and weeping and 
whining that he thought people must be ringing little pigs, 
or cropping puppies’ ears, or drowning kittens : but when 
he came nearer still, he began to hear words among the 
noise ; which was the Tomtoddies’ song which they sing 
morning and evening, and all night too, to their great idol 
Examination — 

carit learn my lesson: the examiner^ s coming T* 

And that was the only song which they knew. 

And when Tom got on shore the first thing he saw was a 
great pillar, on one side of which was inscribed, “Playthings 
not allowed here ; ” at which he was so shocked that he 
would not stay to see what was written on the other side. 
Then he looked round for the people of the island : but 
instead of men, women, and children, he found nothing but 
turnips and radishes, beet and mangold wurzel, without a 
single green leaf among them, and half of them burst and 
decayed, with toad-stools growing out of them. Those 
which were left began crying to Tom, in half a dozen dif- 
ferent languages at once, and all of them badly spoken, “ I 
can’t learn my lesson ; do come and help me ! ” And one 
cried, “ Can you show me how to extract this square root ? ” 

And another, “ Can you tell me the distance between a 
Lyrae and Camelopardis } ” 


207 


The Water-Babies 


And another, “What is the latitude and longitude of 
Snooksville, in Noman’s County, Oregon, U.S. ? ” 

And another, “ What was the name of Mutius Scsvola’s 
thirteenth cousin’s grandmother’s maid’s cat ? ” 

And another, “How long would it take a school-inspector 
of average activity to tumble head over heels from London 
to York?” 

And another, “ Can you tell me the name of a place that 
nobody ever heard of, where nothing ever happened, in a 
country which has not been discovered yet ? ” 

And another, “ Can you show me how to correct this 
hopelessly corrupt passage of Graidiocolosyrtus Tabenniticus, 
on the cause why crocodiles have no tongues ? ” 

And so on, and so on, and so on, till one would have 
thought they were all trying for tide-waiters’ places, or cor- 
netcies in the heavy dragoons. 

“ And what good on earth will it do you if I did tell you ? ” 
quoth Tom. 

Well, they didn’t know that : all they knew was the ex- 
aminer was coming. 

Then Tom stumbled on the hugest and softest nimblecome- 
quick turnip you ever saw filling a hole in a crop of swedes, 
and it cried to him, “ Can you tell me anything at all about 
anything you like ? ” 

“ About what ?” says Tom. 

“ About anything you like ; for as fast as I learn things I 
forget them again. So my mamma says that my intellect is 
not adapted for methodic science, and says that I must go in 
for general information.” 

Tom told him that he did not know general information, 
nor any officers in the army ; only he had a friend once that 


208 


The Water-Babies 


went for a drummer : but he could tell him a great many 
strange things which he had seen in his travels. 

So he told him prettily enough, while the poor turnip 
listened very carefully; and the more he listened, the more 
he forgot, and the more water ran out of him. 

Tom thought he was crying: but it was only his poor 
brains running away, from being worked so hard ; and as 
Tom talked, the unhappy turnip streamed down all over with 
juice, and split and shrank till nothing was left of him but 
rind and water ; whereat Tom ran away in a fright, for he 
thought he might be taken up for killing the turnip. 

But, on the contrary, the turnip’s parents were highly 
delighted, and considered him a saint and a martyr, and put 
up a long inscription over his tomb about his wonderful tal- 
ents, early development, and unparalleled precocity. Were 
they not a foolish couple ? But there was a still more foolish 
couple next to them, who were beating a wretched little rad- 
ish, no bigger than my thumb, for sullenness and obstinacy 
and wilful stupidity, and never knew that the reason why it 
could n’t learn or hardly even speak was, that there was a 
great worm inside it eating out all its brains. But even they 
are no foolisher than some hundred score of papas and mam- 
mas, who fetch the rod when they ought to fetch a new toy, 
and send to the dark cupboard instead of to the doctor. 

Tom was so puzzled and frightened with all he saw, that 
he was longing to ask the meaning of it ; and at last he 
stumbled over a respectable old stick lying half covered with 
earth. But a very stout and worthy stick it was, for it be- 
longed to good Roger Ascham in old time, and had carved 
on his head King Edward the Sixth, with the Bible in his 
hand. 


14 


209 


The Water-Babies 


“You see/’ said the stick, “they were as pretty little 
children once as you could wish to see, and might have been 
so still if they had been only left to grow up like human 
beings, and then handed over to me ; but their foolish fathers 
and mothers, instead of letting them pick flowers, and make 
dirt-pies, and get birds’ nests, and dance round the gooseberry 
bush, as little children should, kept them always at lessons, 
working, working, working, learning week-day lessons all 
week-days, and Sunday lessons all Sunday, and weekly exami- 
nations every Saturday, and monthly examinations every 
month, and yearly examinations every year, everything seven 
times over, as if once was not enough, and enough as good as 
a feast — till their brains grew big, and their bodies grew 
small, and they were all changed into turnips, with little but 
water inside ; and still their foolish parents actually pick the 
leaves off them as fast as they grow, lest they should have 
anything green about them.” 

“Ah! ” said Tom, “if dear Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby 
knew of it she would send them a lot of tops, and balls, and 
marbles, and ninepins, and make them all as jolly as sand- 
boys.” 

“ It would be no use,” said the stick. “They can’t play 
now, if they tried. Don’t you see how their legs have turned 
to roots and grown into the ground, by never taking any 
exercise, but sapping and moping always in the same place .? 
But here comes the Examiner-of-all-Examiners. So you had 
better get away, I warn you, or he will examine you and 
your dog into the bargain, and set him to examine all the 
other dogs, and you to examine all the other water-babies. 
There is no escaping out of his hands, for his nose is nine 
thousand miles long, and can go down chimneys, and through 


210 


The Water-Babies 


keyholes, upstairs, downstairs, in my lady’s chamber, examin- 
ing all little boys, and the little boys’ tutors likewise. But 
when he is thrashed — so Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid has 
promised me — I shall have the thrashing of him : and if 
I don’t lay it on with a will it ’s a pity.” 

Tom went off: but rather slowly and surlily; for he was 
somewhat minded to face this same Examiner-of-all-Examin- 
ers, who came striding among the poor turnips, binding heavy 
burdens and grievous to be borne, and laying them on little 
children’s shoulders, like the Scribes and Pharisees of old, and 
not touching the same with one of his fingers ; for he had 
plenty of money, and a fine house to live in, and so forth ; 
which was more than the poor little turnips had. 

But when he got near, he looked so big and burly and 
dictatorial, and shouted so loud to Tom, to come and be 
examined, that Tom ran for his life, and the dog too. And 
really it was time ; for the poor turnips, in their hurry and 
fright, crammed themselves so fast to be ready for the 
Examiner, that they burst and popped by dozens all round 
him, till the place sounded like Aldershot on a field-day, 
and Tom thought he should be blown into the air, dog 
and all. 

As he went down to the shore he passed the poor turnip’s 
new tomb. But Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid had taken away the 
epitaph about talents and precocity and development, and put 
up one of her own instead which Tom thought much more 
sensible : — 

<< Instruction sore long time I bore. 

And cramming was in vain ; 

Till heaven did please my woes to ease. 

With water on the brain A 


2II 


The Water-Babies 


So Tom jumped into the sea, and swam on his way, 
singing : — 

“ Farewell^ Tomtoddies all ; I thank my stars 
F hat nought I know save those three royal r s : 

Reading and riting sure, with rithmetick. 

Will help a lad of sense through thin and thicks 

Whereby you may see that Tom was no poet: but no more 
was John Bunyan, though he was as wise a man as you will 
meet in a month of Sundays. 

And next he came to Oldwivesfabledom, where the folks 
were all heathens, and worshipped a howling ape. 

And there he found a little boy sitting in the middle of the 
road, and crying bitterly. 

“ What are you crying for ?” said Tom. 

“ Because I am not as frightened as I could wish to be.” 

“Not frightened? You are a queer little chap: but, if 
you want to be frightened, here goes — Boo ! ” 

“ Ah ! ” said the little boy, “ that is very kind of you ; but 
I don’t feel that it has made any impression.” 

Tom offered to upset him, punch him, stamp on him, 
fettle him over the head with a brick, or anything else what- 
soever which would give him the slightest comfort. 

But he only thanked Tom very civilly, in fine long words 
which he had heard other folk use, and which therefore, 
he thought were fit and proper to use himself; and cried on 
till his papa and mamma came, and sent off for the Powwow 
man immediately. And a very good-natured gentleman and 
lady they were, though they were heathens; and talked quite 
pleasantly to Tom about his travels, till the Powwow man 
arrived, with his thunderbox under his arm. 


The Water-Babies 


And a well-fed, ill-favoured gentleman he was, as ever 
served Her Majesty at Portland. Tom was a little frightened 
at first ; for he thought it was Grimes. But he soon saw his 
mistake : for Grimes always looked a man in the face ; and 
this fellow never did. And when he spoke, it was fire and 
smoke ; and when he sneezed, it was squibs and crackers ; 
and when he cried (which he did whenever it paid him), it 
was boiling pitch ; and some of it was sure to stick. 

“ Here we are again ! ” cried he, like the clown in a pan- 
tomime. “ So you can’t feel frightened, my little dear — eh 
I ’ll do that for you. I ’ll make an impression on you ! 
Yah! Bool Whirroo 1 Hullabaloo!” 

And he rattled, thumped, brandished his thunderbox, 
yelled, shouted, raved, roared, stamped, and danced corrobory 
like any black fellow ; and then he touched a spring in the 
thunderbox, and out popped turnip-ghosts and magic-lan- 
thorns and pasteboard bogies and spring-heeled Jacks and 
sallaballas, with such a horrid din, clatter, clank, roll, rattle, 
and roar, that the little boy turned up the whites of his eyes, 
and fainted right away. 

And at that his poor heathen papa and mamma were as 
much delighted as if they had found a gold mine ; and fell 
down upon their knees before the Powwow man, and gave 
him a palanquin with a pole of solid silver and curtains of 
cloth of gold ; and carried him about in it on their own 
backs : but as soon as they had taken him up, the pole stuck 
to their shoulders, and they could not set him down any 
more, but carried him on willynilly, as Sinbad carried the old 
man of the sea : which was a pitiable sight to see ; for the 
father was a very brave officer, and wore two swords and a 
blue button ; and the mother was as pretty a lady as ever had 


213 


The Water-Babies 


pinched feet like a Chinese. But you see, they had chosen 
to do a foolish thing just once too often ; so, by the laws of 
Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid, they had to go on doing it whether 
they chose or not, till the coming of the Cocqcigrues. 

Ah ! don’t you wish that some one would go and convert 
those poor heathens, and teach them not to frighten their 
little children into fits ? 

“Now, then,” said the Powwow man to Tom, “would n’t 
you like to be frightened, my little dear? For I can see 
plainly that you are a very wicked, naughty, graceless, repro- 
bate boy.” 

“You’re another,” quoth Tom, very sturdily. And when 
the man ran at him, and cried “ Boo ! ” Tom ran at him in 
return, and cried “Boo!” likewise, right in his face, and set 
the little dog upon him ; and at his legs the dog went. 

At which, if you will believe it, the fellow turned tail, 
thunderbox and all, with a “ Woof I ” like an old sow on the 
common; and ran for his life, screaming, “Help! thieves! 
murder ! fire ! He is going to kill me ! I am a ruined 
man ! He will murder me ; and break, burn, and destroy 
my precious and invaluable thunderbox ; and then you will 
have no more thunder-showers in the land. Help ! help ! 
help ! ” 

At which the papa and mamma and all the people of Old- 
wivesfabledom flew at Tom, shouting, “Oh, the wicked, 
impudent, hard-hearted, graceless boy ! Beat him, kick him, 
shoot him, drown him, hang him, burn him ! ” and so 
forth : but luckily they had nothing to shoot, hang, or burn 
him with, for the fairies had hid all the killing-tackle out of 
the way a little while before ; so they could only pelt him 
with stones ; and some of the stones went clean through him. 


214 


The Water-Babies 


and came out the other side. But he did not mind that a 
bit ; for the holes closed up again as fast as they were made, 
because he was a water-baby. However, he was very glad 
when he was safe out of the country, for the noise there 
made him all but deaf. 

Then he came to a very quiet place, called Leaveheaven- 
alone. And there the sun was drawing water out of the sea 
to make steam-threads, and the wind was twisting them up 
to make cloud-patterns, till they had worked between them 
the loveliest wedding veil of Chantilly lace, and hung it up in 
their own Crystal Palace for any one to buy who could afford 
it ; while the good old sea never grudged, for she knew 
they would pay her back honestly. So the sun span, and the 
wind wove, and all went well with the great steam-loom ; as 
is likely, considering — and considering — and considering — 

And at last, after innumerable adventures, each more 
wonderful than the last, he saw before him a huge build- 
ing, much bigger, and — what is most surprising — a little 
uglier than a certain new lunatic asylum, but not built quite 
of the same materials. None of it, at least — or, indeed, 
for aught that I ever saw, any part of any other building 
whatsoever — is cased with nine-inch brick inside and out, 
and filled up with rubble between the walls, in order that 
any gentleman who has been confined during Her Majesty’s 
pleasure may be unconfined during his own pleasure, and 
take a walk in the neighbouring park to improve his spirits, 
after an hour’s light and wholesome labour with his dinner- 
fork or one of the legs of his iron bedstead. No. The 
walls of this building were built on an entirely different 
principle, which need not be described, as it has not 
yet been discovered. 


215 


The Water-Babies 


Tom walked towards this great building, wondering what 
it was, and having a strange fancy that he might find Mr. 
Grimes inside it, till he saw running toward him, and shout- 
ing “ Stop ! three or four people, who, when they came 
nearer, were nothing else than policemen’s truncheons, 
running along without legs or arms. 

Tom was not astonished. He was long past that. Be- 
sides, he had seen the naviculae in the water move nobody 
knows how, a hundred times, without arms, or legs, or any- 
thing to stand in their stead. Neither was he frightened ; 
for he had been doing no harm. 

So he stopped ; and, when the foremost truncheon came 
up and asked his business, he showed Mother Carey’s pass ; 
and the truncheon looked at it in the oddest fashion ; for he 
had one eye in the middle of his upper end, so that when he 
looked at anything, being quite stiff, he had to slope himself, 
and poke himself, till it was a wonder why he did not 
tumble over ; but, being quite full of the spirit of justice (as 
all policemen, and their truncheons, ought to be), he was 
always in a position of stable equilibrium, whichever way 
he put himself. 

‘‘All right — pass on,” said he at last. And then he 
added ; “ I had better go with you, young man.” And 
Tom had no objection, for such company was both respect- 
able and safe ; so the truncheon coiled its thong neatly 
round its handle, to prevent tripping itself up — for the 
thong had got loose in running — and marched on by 
Tom’s side. 

“ Why have you no policeman to carry you ? ” asked 
Tom, after a while. 

“ Because we are not like those clumsy-made truncheons 


2i6 


The Water-Babies 

in the land-world, which cannot go without having a whole 
man to carry them about. We do our own work for our- 
selves ; and do it very well, though I say it who should not.’’ 

“ Then why have you a thong to your handle ? ” asked 
Tom. 

“To hang ourselves up by, of course, when we are off 
duty.” 

Tom had got his answer, and had no more to say, till 
they came up to the great iron door of the prison. And 
there the truncheon knocked twice, with its own head. 

A wicket in the door opened, and out looked a tremen- 
dous old brass blunderbuss charged up to the muzzle with 
slugs, who was the porter ; and Tom started back a little at 
the sight of him. 

“ What case is this ? ” he asked in a deep voice, out of his 
broad bell mouth. 

“ If you please, sir, it is no case ; only a young gentleman 
from her ladyship, who wants to see Grimes, the master- 
sweep.” 

“ Grimes ! ” said the blunderbuss. And he pulled in his 
muzzle, perhaps to look over his prison-lists. 

“ Grimes is up chimney No. 345,” he said from inside. 
“ So the young gentleman had better go on to the roof.” 

Tom looked up at the enormous wall, which seemed at 
least ninety miles high, and wondered how he should ever 
get up : but when he hinted that to the truncheon, it settled 
the matter in a moment. For it whisked round and gave 
him such a shove behind as sent him up to the roof in 
no time, with his little dog under his arm. 

And there he walked along the leads, till he met another 
truncheon, and told him his errand. 


217 


The Water-Babies 


“ Very good/’ it said. “ Come along : but it will be of 
no use. He is the most unremorseful, hard-hearted, foul- 
mouthed fellow I have in charge ; and thinks about nothing 
but beer and pipes, which are not allowed here, of course.” 

So they walked along over the leads, and very sooty they 
were, and Tom thought the chimneys must want sweep- 
ing very much. But he was surprised to see that the 
soot did not stick to his feet, or dirty them in the least. 
Neither did the live coals, which were lying about in 
plenty, burn him ; for, being a water-baby, his radical 
humours were of a moist and cold nature, as you may 
read at large in Lemnius, Cardan, Van Helmont, and 
other gentlemen, who knew as much as they could, and 
no man can know more. 

And at last they came to chimney No. 345. Out of the 
top of it, his head and shoulders just showing, stuck poor 
Mr. Grimes, so sooty, and bleared, and ugly, that Tom 
could hardly bear to look at him. And in his mouth 
was a pipe ; but it was not a-light ; though he was 
pulling at it with all his might. 

“ Attention, Mr. Grimes,” said the truncheon ; “ here is a 
gentleman come to see you.” 

But Mr. Grimes only said bad words ; and kept grum- 
bling, “ My pipe won’t draw. My pipe won’t draw.” 

‘‘ Keep a civil tongue, and attend ! ” said the truncheon ; 
and popped up just like Punch, hitting Grimes such a 
crack over the head with itself, that his brains rattled 
inside like a dried walnut in its shell. He tried to get 
his hands out, and rub the place : but he could not, 
for they were stuck fast in the chimney. Now he was 
forced to attend. 


218 


The Water-Babies 


‘‘ Hey ! ” he said, ‘‘ why, it ’s Tom ! I suppose you have 
come here to laugh at me, you spiteful little atomy ? ” 

Tom assured him he had not, but only wanted to help him. 

“ I don’t want anything except beer, and that I can’t get ; 
and a light to this bothering pipe, and that I can’t get 
either.” 

“ I ’ll get you one,” said Tom ; and he took up a live 
coal (there were plenty lying about) and put it to Grimes’ 
pipe : but it went out instantly. 

“ It ’s no use,” said the truncheon, leaning itself up 
against the chimney and looking on. I tell you, it 
is no use. His heart is so cold that it freezes every- 
thing that comes near him. You will see that presently, 
plain enough.” 

Oh, of course, it ’s my fault. Everything ’s always 
my fault,” said Grimes. “ Now don’t go to hit me again 
(for the truncheon started upright, and looked very wicked) ; 
“ you know, if my arms were only free, you dare n’t hit me 
then.” 

The truncheon leant back against the chimney, and took 
no notice of the personal insult, like a well-trained police- 
man as it was, though he was ready enough to avenge 
any transgression against morality or order. 

“ But can’t I help you in any other way ? Can’t I help 
you to get out of this chimney ? ” said Tom. 

“ No,” interposed the truncheon ; “ he has come to the 
place where everybody must help themselves ; and he will 
find it out, I hope, before he has done with me.” 

“ Oh, yes,” said Grimes, “ of course it ’s me. Did I ask 
to be brought here into the prison ? Did I ask to be set 
to sweep your foul chimneys ? Did I ask to have lighted 


219 


The Water-Babies 

Straw put under me to make me go up ? Did I ask to stick 
fast in the very first chimney of all, because it was so shame- 
fully clogged up with soot ? Did I ask to stay here — I 
don’t know how long — a hundred years, I do believe, 
and never get my pipe, nor my beer, nor nothing fit 
for a beast, let alone a man ? ” 

“No,” answered a solemn voice behind. “No more did 
Tom, when you behaved to him in the very same way.” 

It was Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid. And, when the trun- 
cheon saw her, it started bolt upright — Attention ! — and 
made such a low bow, that if it had not been full of the 
spirit of justice, it must have tumbled on its end, and 
probably hurt its one eye. And Tom made his bow too. 

“ Oh, ma’am,” he said, “ don’t think about me ; that ’s 
all past and gone, and good times and bad times and all times 
pass over. But may not I help poor Mr. Grimes .? May n’t 
I try and get some of these bricks away, that he may move 
his arms ? ” 

“ You may try, of course,” she said. 

So Tom pulled and tugged at the bricks ; but he could 
not move one. And then he tried to wipe Mr. Grimes’ 
face : but the soot would not come off. 

“ Oh, dear ! ” he said. “ I have come all this way, 
through all these terrible places, to help you, and now 
I am of no use at all.” 

“ You had best leave me alone,” said Grimes ; “ you are a 
good-natured forgiving little chap, and that ’s truth ; but 
you ’d best be off. The hail ’s coming on soon, and it 
will beat the eyes out of your little head.” 

“ What hail ? ” 

“ Why, hail that falls every evening here ; and, till it 


2 20 


The Water-Babies 


comes close to me, it ’s like so much warm rain : but 
then it turns to hail over my head, and knocks me about 
like small shot.” 

“ That hail will never come any more,” said the strange 
lady. ‘‘ I have told you before what it was. It was your 
mother’s tears, those which she shed when she prayed 
for you by her bedside ; but your cold heart froze it into 
hail. But she is gone to heaven now, and will weep 
no more for her graceless son.” 

Then Grimes was silent awhile ; and then he looked 
very sad. 

“ So my old mother ’s gone, and I never there to speak to 
her ! Ah ! a good woman she was, and might have been a 
happy one, in her little school there in Vendale, if it had n’t 
been for me and my bad ways.” 

‘‘ Did she keep the school in Vendale ? ” asked Tom. 
And then he told Grimes all the story of his going to 
her house, and how she could not abide the sight of 
a chimney-sweep, and then how kind she was, and how 
he turned into a water-baby. 

“ Ah,” said Grimes, “ good reason she had to hate the 
sight of a chimney-sweep. I ran away from her and 
took up with the sweeps, and never let her know where 
I was, nor sent her a penny to help her, and now it ’s too 
late — too late!” said Mr. Grimes. 

And he began crying and blubbering like a great baby, till 
his pipe dropped out of his mouth, and broke all to bits. 

‘‘ Oh, dear, if I was but a little chap in Vendale again, to 
see the clear beck, and the apple-orchard, and the yew- 
hedge, how different I would go on 1 But it’s too late now. 
So you go along, you kind little chap, and don’t stand to 


221 


The Water-Babies 


look at a man crying, that ’s old enough to be your father, 
and never feared the face of man, nor of worse neither. But 
I ’m beat now, and beat I must be. “ I Ve made my bed, 
and I must lie on it. Foul I would be, and foul I am, as an 
Irishwoman said to me once ; and little I heeded it. It ’s all 
my own fault : but it ’s too late.” And he cried so bitterly 
that Tom began crying too. 

“ Never too late,” said the fairy, in such a strange soft 
new voice that Tom looked up at her ; and she was so beau- 
tiful for the moment, that Tom half fancied she was her 
sister. 

No more was it too late. For, as poor Grimes cried and 
blubbered on, his own tears did what his mother’s could not 
do, and Tom’s could not do, and nobody’s on earth could do 
for him ; for they washed the soot off his face and off his 
clothes ; and then they washed the mortar away from be- 
tween the bricks ; and the chimney crumbled down ; and 
Grimes began to get out of it. 

Up jumped the truncheon, and was going to hit him on 
the crown a tremendous thump, and drive him down again 
like a cork into a bottle. But the strange lady put it aside. 

‘‘ Will you obey me if I give you a chance ? ” 

“As you please, ma’am. You’re stronger than me — that 
I know too well, and wiser than me, I know too well also. 
And, as for being my own master, I ’ve fared ill enough 
with that as yet. So whatever your ladyship pleases to order 
me ; for I ’m beat, and that ’s the truth.” 

“ Be it so then — you may come out. But remem- 
ber, disobey me again, and into a worse place still you 

go*” 


“ I beg pardon, ma’am, but I never disobeyed you that I 


222 


The Water-Babies 

know of. I never had the honour of setting eyes upon you 
till I came to these ugly quarters.” 

“ Never saw me ? Who said to you. Those that will 
be foul, foul they will be ? ” 

Grimes looked up ; and Tom looked up too ; for the voice 
was that of the Irishwoman who met them the day that they 
went out together to Harthover. “ I gave you your warning 
then : but you gave it yourself a thousand times before and 
since. Every bad word that you said — every cruel and 
mean thing that you did — every time that you got tipsy — 
every day that you went dirty — you were disobeying me, 
whether you knew it or not.” 

“ If I ’d only known, ma’am ” 

“ You knew well enough that you were disobeying some- 
thing, though you did not know it was me. But come 
out and take your chance. Perhaps it may be your 
last.” 

So Grimes stepped out of the chimney, and really, if it 
had not been for the scars on his face, he looked as clean 
and respectable as a master-sweep need look. 

“ Take him away,” said she to the truncheon, “ and 
give him his ticket-of-leave.” 

And what is he to do, ma’am ” 

“ Get him to sweep out the crater of Etna ; he will find 
some very steady men working out their time there, who 
will teach him his business : but mind, if that crater gets 
choked again, and there is an earthquake in consequence, 
bring them all to me, and I shall investigate the case very 
severely.” 

So the truncheon marched off Mr. Grimes, looking 
as meek as a drowned worm. 


223 


The Water-Babies 


And for aught I know, or do not know, he is sweep- 
ing the crater of Etna to this very day. 

“And now,” said the fairy to Tom, “your work 
here is done. You may as well go back again.” 

“I should be glad enough to go,” said Tom, “but how 
am I to get up that great hole again, now the steam 
has stopped blowing ? ” 

“ I will take you up the backstairs : but I must bandage 
your eyes first ; for I never allow anybody to see those 
backstairs of mine.” 

“ I am sure I shall not tell anybody about them, ma’am, 
if you bid me not.” 

“ Aha ! So you think, my little man. But you would 
soon forget your promise if you got back into the land- 
world. For, if people only once found out that you had 
been up my backstairs, you would have all the fine ladies 
kneeling to you, and the rich men emptying their purses be- 
fore you, and statesmen offering you place and power ; and 
young and old, rich and poor, crying to you, ‘ Only tell us the 
great backstairs secret, and we will be your slaves ; we will 
make you lord, king, emperor, bishop, archbishop, pope, if 
you like — only tell us the secret of the backstairs. For 
thousands of years we have been paying, and petting, and 
obeying, and worshipping quacks who told us they had the 
key of the backstairs, and could smuggle us up them ; and in 
spite of all our disappointments, we will honour, and glorify, 
and adore, and beatify, and translate, and apotheosise you 
likewise, on the chance of your knowing something about 
the backstairs, that we may all go on pilgrimage to it ; and, 
even if we cannot get up it, lie at the foot of it, and 
cry — 


224 


The Water-Babies 


‘ Oh, backstairs, 
precious backstairs, 
invaluable backstairs, 
requisite backstairs, 
necessary backstairs, 
good-natured backstairs, 
cosmopolitan backstairs, 
comprehensive backstairs, 
accommodating backstairs, 
well-bred backstairs, 
commercial backstairs, 
economical backstairs, 
practical backstairs, 
logical backstairs, 
deductive backstairs. 


potent backstairs, 
all-but-omnipotent backstairs, 
&c. 


comfortable backstairs, 
humane backstairs, 
reasonable backstairs, 
long-sought backstairs, 
coveted backstairs, 
aristocratic backstairs, 
respectable backstairs, 
gentlemanlike backstairs, 
ladylike backstairs, 
orthodox backstairs, 
probable backstairs, 
credible backstairs, 
demonstrable backstairs, 
irrefragable backstairs. 


Save us from the consequences of our own actions, and 
from the cruel fairy, Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid ! ’ Do not 
you think that you would be a little tempted then to tell 
what you know, laddie ? ” 

Tom thought so certainly. “ But why do they want so 
to know about the backstairs .? ’’ asked he, being a little 
frightened at the long words, and not understanding them 
the least ; as, indeed, he was not meant to do, or you 
either. 

‘‘ That I shall not tell you. I never put things into little 
folks’ heads which are but too likely to come there of them- 
selves. So come — now I must bandage your eyes.” So she 


15 


225 


The Water-Babies 


tied the bandage on his eyes with one hand, and with the 
other she took it off. 

“Now,” she said, “you are safe up the stairs.” Tom 
opened his eyes very wide, and his mouth too ; for he had not, 
as he thought, moved a single step. But, when he looked 
round him, there could be no doubt that he was safe up the 
backstairs, whatsoever they may be, which no man is going 
to tell you, for the plain reason that no man knows. 

The first thing which Tom saw was the black cedars, 
high and sharp against the rosy dawn ; and St. Brandan’s Isle 
reflected double in the still broad silver sea. The wind sang 
softly in the cedars, and the water sang among the caves : the 
sea-birds sang as they streamed out into the ocean, and the 
land-birds as they built among the boughs ; and the air was 
so full of song that it stirred St. Brandan and his hermits, as 
they slumbered in the shade ; and they moved their good old 
lips, and sang their morning hymn amid their dreams. But 
among all the songs one came across the water more sweet 
and clear than all ; for it was the song of a young girl’s voice. 

And what was the song which she sang ? Ah, my little 
man, I am too old to sing that song, and you too young to 
understand it. But have patience, and keep your eye single, 
and your hands clean, and you will learn some day to sing it 
yourself, without needing any man to teach you. 

And as Tom neared the island, there sat upon a rock the 
most graceful creature that ever was seen, looking down, 
with her chin upon her hand, and paddling with her feet in 
the water. And when they came to her she looked up, and 
behold it was Elbe. 

“ Oh, Miss Ellie,” said he, “ how you are grown ! ” 

“ Oh, Tom,” said she, “ how you are grown too ! ” 


226 


The Water- Babies 


And no wonder ; they were both quite grown up — he 
into a tall man, and she into a beautiful woman. 

“ Perhaps I may be grown,” she said. “ I have had 
time enough ; for I have been sitting here waiting for 
you many a hundred years, till I thought you were never 
coming.” 

“Many a hundred years.?” thought Tom; but he had 
seen so much in his travels that he had quite given up being 
astonished ; and, indeed, he could think of nothing but Elbe. 
So he stood and looked at Ellie, and Ellie looked at him ; 
and they liked the employment so much that they stood and 
looked for seven years more, and neither spoke nor stirred. 

At last they heard the fairy say : “ Attention, children. 
Are you never going to look at me again?” 

“We have been looking at you all this while,” they said. 
And so they thought they had been. 

“ Then look at me once more,” said she. 

\ They looked — and both of them cried out at once, “ Oh, 
who are you, after all ? ” 

i “ You are our dear Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby.” 

\ “No, you are good Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid ; but you are 
irown quite beautiful now ! ” 

To you,” said the fairy. “ But look again.” 

You are Mother Carey,” said Tom, in a very low, solemn 
for he had found out something which made him 
happy, and yet frightened him more than all that he 
ever seen. 

But you are grown quite young again.” 

V To you,” said the fairy. “ Look again.” 

You are the Irishwoman who met me the day I went to 
rthover ! ” 


The Water-Babies 


And when they looked she was neither of them, and 
yet all of them at once. 

“ My name is written in my eyes, if you have eyes 
to see it there.” 

And they looked into her great, deep, soft eyes, and 
they changed again and again into every hue, as the light 
changes in a diamond. 

“ Now read my name,” said she at last. 

And her eyes flashed, for one moment, clear, white, blaz- 
ing light : but the children could not read her name ; for 
they were dazzled, and hid their faces in their hands. 

“ Not yet, young things, not yet,” said she, smiling ; and 
then she turned to Elbe. 

“ You may take him home with you now on Sundays, , 
Elbe. He has won his spurs in the great battle, and be- 
come fit to go with you and be a man ; because he has 
done the thing he did not like.” 

So Tom went home with Elbe on Sundays, and some- 
times on week-days, too ; and he is now a great man of 
science, and can plan railroads, and steam-engines, anc 
electric telegraphs, and rifled guns, and so forth ; and knows 
everything about everything, except why a hen’s egg dont 
turn into a crocodile, and two or three other little things 
which no one will know till the coming of the Cocqcigruts. 
And all this from what he learnt when he was a water-baty, 
underneath the sea. 

And of course Tom married Elbe 

My dear child, what a silly notion ! Don’t you know 
that no one ever marries in a fairy tale, under the rank of 
a prince or a princess? 

‘‘And Tom’s dog?” 


228 


The Water-Babies 


Oh, you may see him any clear night in July ; for the old 
dog-star was so worn out by the last three hot summers that 
there have been no dog-days since ; so that they had to take 
him down and put Tom’s dog up in his place. Therefore^ 
as new brooms sweep clean, we may hope for some warm 
weather this year. And that is the end of my story. 


229 


The Water-Babies 


MORAL 


/fND noWy my dear little mariy what should we learn from 
this parable ? 

We should learn thirty-seven or thirty-nine things^ I 
am not exactly sure which : but one thing, at least, we may 
learn, and that is this — when we see efts in the pond, never to 
throw stones at them, or catch them with crooked pins, or put 
them into vivariums with sticklebacks, that the sticklebacks may 
prick them in their poor little stomachs, and make them jump out 
of the glass into somebody's work-box , ana so come to a bad end. 
For these efts are nothing else but the water-babies who are stupid 
and dirty, and will not learn their lessons and keep themselves 
clean ; and, therefore {as comparative anatomists will tell you 
fifty years hence, though they are not learned enough to tell you 
now), their skulls grow flat, their jaws grow out, and their 
brains grow small, and their tails grow long, and they lose all 
their ribs (which I am sure you would not like to do), and their 
skins grow dirty and spotted, and they never get into the clear 
rivers, much less into the great wide sea, but hang about in 
dirty ponds, and live in the mud, and eat worms, as they deserve 
to do. 

But that is no reason why you should ill-use them : but only 
why you should pity them, and be kind to them, and hope that 
some day they will wake up, and be ashamed of their nasty, dirty, 
lazy, stupid life, and try to amend, and become something better 
once more. For, perhaps, if they do so, then after 37^,42^ 
years, nine months, thirteen days, two hours, and twenty-one 


230 


The Water-Babies 


minutes i^for aught that appears to the contrary^ ^ if they work 
•very hard and wash very hard all that time^ their brains may 
grow bigger^ and their jaws grow smaller^ and their ribs come 
back, and their tails wither off, and they will turn into water- 
babies again, and perhaps after that into land-babies ; and after 
that perhaps into grown men. 

Tou know they won’t? Very well, I daresay you know best. 
But you see, some folks have a great liking for those poor little 
elfs. ‘They never did anybody any harm, or could if they tried; 
and their only fault is, that they do no good — any more than 
some thousands of their betters. But what with ducks, and what 
with pike, and what with sticklebacks, and what with water- 
beetles, and what with naughty boys, they are sae sair hadden 
down,” as the Scotsmen say, that it is a wonder how they live ; 
and some folks can’t help hoping, with good Bishop Butler, that 
they may have another chance, to make things fair and even, 
somewhere, somewhen, somehow. 

Meanwhile, do you learn your lessons, and thank God that you 
have plenty of cold water to wash in ; and wash in it too, like a 
true Englishman. And then, if my story is not true, something 
better is ; and if I am not quite right, still you will be, as long 
as you stick to hard work and cold water. 

But remember always, as I told you at first, that this is all a 
fairy tale, and only fun and pretence : and, therefore, you are not 
to believe a word of it, even if it is true. 


231 


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